I 


The  Lure  <f  Gold 


JOHN*  MORNING 


LURE  O'GOLD 


fEMLEY  M1LAM) 

^Drawings&Decoraliom 


EDWARD  J.  CLODE 

156  Fifth  Ave.,  New  York 
Mdcccciiii 


Copyright  1904,  by  EDWARD  J.  CLODE 

All  rights  reserved 

June,  1904 


Plimpton  Press  Norwood  Mass. 


Co 
WILLIAM  RANDOLPH  HEARST 


Contents 

I  My  Burden  of  Treasure        .          .  .         1 

II  Advice  from  Doctor  Quaritch         .  .       17 

III  On  the  Lighter  my  Burden  grows  Heavier        24 

IV  In  which  I  am  Relieved  of  my  Burden        39 

V  Back  to  the  Golden  North     .         ..  ;       51 

VI  Guarding  the  Beach      .         .         .,  .62 

VII  The  White  Buoy  Bobs  Up    .          .  .       70 

VIII  A  Glimpse  of  the  Poetical  Pirate  .  .       79 

IX  In  the  Steerage    .          .          .         .  .91 

X  A  Heavy  Trunk           .                   .  .101 

XI  The  Bulkhead  Door      .          .         .  .110 

XII  The  "  Tai-Fung"          .          .          .  .     128 

XIII  Wreck  of  the  Flying  Mist      .          .  .     138 

XIV  Searching  for  the  Treasure    .          .  »     152 

XV  The  Last  Pound  of  Coal       .          .  .166 

XVI  "Finding  is  Keeping"           .          .  .179 

XVII  In  the  Lower  Hold       .          .          .  .194 

XVIII  The  Heat  of  the  Gold-Hunt           .  .     202 

XIX  The  Steam  Collier         .          .          .  .210 

XX  In  the  Shaft  Alley        .          .          .  .224 

XXI  In  which  my  Burden  is  Resumed.  .     234 

vii 


Illustrations 

John  Morning         ....          Frontispiece 

Dr.   Quaritch 53 

Bill 97 

Pete  Slattery 145 

George  Somers          .....  191 

Max  Fishley 237 


The  Lure  o*  Gold 


MY  BURDEN  OF  TREASURE 


AINGULAR  wakefulness  possessed  me.   I  was 
thinking  and  thinking    of  the  treasure  and 
of  how  I  was  to  convey  it  safely  home.   The 
treasure  was  at  that  moment  in  the  care  of  the  trusty 
landlord  of  the  Golden  North  Hotel  —  he  of  the  honest 
brown  eye,  the  round  frame,  the  heavy  red  beard  and 
bald   crown.     I   had   selected  him   as   the   temporary 
guardian  of  my  gold  because  he  was  the  only  responsible 
person  in  the  whole  mining  camp  of  Nome  that  I  knew 
intimately  at  the  time. 

Not  that  he  was  a  model  man,  by  any  means.  He  was 
rather  uncouth,  in  fact.  His  red  beard  had  a  rat's- 
nesty  look  and  at  times  his  language  was  as  hard  as 
his  beds.  As  to  the  solidity  of  the  beds  I  could  freely 
have  testified  at  that  moment,  if  the  one  I  was  trying  to 
sleep  in  was  a  fair  example.  The  frame  of  it  was  made 


The  Lure  o  Gold 

of  rough  pine  scantlings  which  supported  a  lumpy  mat- 
tre&s;  two  pairs  of  shoddy  blankets  and  no  sheet  or  pil 
low.  Still  the  blankets  were  clean  and  the  box  of  a 
room  was  neat  enough,  though  the  red-and-green  wall 
paper  was  saggy  and  wrinkly  in  places. 

But  it  was  not  the  hardness  of  my  bed  which  kept  me 
awake,  for  I  had  camped  on  frozen  tundra  and  sandy 
beach,  and  minded  rough  beds  not  at  all.  Nor  did  I 
miss  the  absent  pillow,  for  my  rigidly  ruling  father  had 
taught  me  when  I  was  but  a  little  tad  that  a  pillow  was  a 
dangerous  luxury  and  that  if  I  wished  to  be  "  straight 
as  an  Indian  "  I  might  better  dispense  with  soft  "  head 
pads,"  as  he  called  them;  and,  in  this  instance,  at  least, 
I  had  been  obedient  to  his  teaching. 

No,  it  was  not  my  bed  that  was  cheating  me  of  my 
much-needed  sleep;  but  another  bed  in  the  opposite 
side  of  the  sleeping-box,  not  more  than  three  feet  from 
mine,  contributed  not  a  little  to  my  wakefulness.  Mind 
you,  there  was  nobody  in  the  other  bed.  I  had  seen  by 
the  light  of  the  candle,  which  I  had  extinguished  some 
hours  before,  that  it  was  empty  and  that  there  was  no 
sign  of  any  other  person's  occupancy  of  the  room  except 
a  small  black  leather  bag,  with  the  initials  "R.  N." 
marked  upon  it.  When  the  landlord  of  the  Golden 

[2] 


My  Burden  of  Treasure 

North  had  conducted  me  to  the  room  he  had  said  that  a 
light-haired,  oldish  man  with  a  short,  sandy  beard  had 
paid  for  the  other  bed  for  the  night  and  had  left  his  bag 
there.  The  landlord  could  tell  no  more  about  the  light- 
haired  man;  nor  did  I,  at  the  time,  care  to  know,  for  I 
had  seemed  to  be  uncommonly  tired  and  sleepy  after 
my  long  tramp  up  the  beach  into  camp;  but  soon  after 
blowing  out  the  candle  and  getting  under  the  shoddy 
blankets  I  began  to  wish  that  I  had  had  a  little  acquain 
tance  with  "R.  N.,"  my  unknown  roommate.  Had  I 
locked  the  door  before  retiring  I  might  have  been  able 
to  sleep  until  he  knocked  and  then  to  get  up  and  let  him 
in.  But  I  had  not  locked  the  door,  for  the  simple  rea 
son  that  it  had  no  lock,  nor  even  a  bolt  or  "  catch." 

In  the  darkness  of  a  strange  bedroom  one's  fancies 
are  often  weird  to  the  point  of  absurdity,  and  when  one 
is  only  a  lad  of  eighteen  and  has  forty  thousand  dollars' 
worth  of  gold  dust  on  one's  mind  one  is  likely  to  become 
rather  morbid  in  one's  meditations.  To  be  sure,  the 
treasure  was  not  in  the  room.  It  was  in  a  stout  box 
which  was  in  the  landlord's  securely  locked  private 
closet,  which  was  just  behind  the  hotel  counter.  The 
box  had  a  big  brass  padlock  on  it  and  I  had  the  key  of 
that  padlock,  together  with  five  hundred  dollars'  worth 

[3] 


The  Lure  o'  Gold 

of  dust  in  my  little  "poke,"  or  chamois  bag,  which  was 
at  that  moment  reposing  under  the  mattress  within 
easy  reach  of  my  hand. 

At  the  head  of  my  bed  stood  a  rifle  which  I  had  car 
ried  all  through  my  Alaskan  travels  for  the  purpose  of 
providing  game  for  the  camp  table,  which  had  oftener 
been  a  rock  in  the  open  than  anything  more  serviceable, 
and  once  or  twice  had  been  merely  a  smooth  block  of 
ice. 

One  comfort  which  I,  in  my  fanciful  condition  of 
mind,  extracted  from  the  situation  was  that  "  R.  N.," 
whoever  he  might  be,  was  a  light-haired  man.  For  of 
course  he  had  a  light  face;  and  there  is  something  less 
of  mystery  and  more  of  everyday  plainness  and  open 
ness  about  a  light  face  than  there  is  about  a  dark  one. 
My  overwrought  brain  —  what  might  it  not  have  con 
jured  up  had  the  landlord  told  me  that  my  unknown 
roommate  was  a  dark  man  ? 

I  tried  to  reason  with  myself.  What  could  "R.  N." 
have  to  do  with  me  or  with  my  treasure  ?  Supposing 
that,  at  the  worst,  while  I  was  asleep  he  should  rob  me 
of  the  "  poke  "  and  take  away  the  key  of  my  strong  box, 
I  still  had  gold  enough.  And  the  key  —  he  could  do 
nothing  with  that. 

[4] 


My  Burden  of  Treasure 

And  yet  my  eyes  would  pop  open  and  my  ears  would 
be  alert,  for  every  time  my  weary  lids  closed  I  had  a 
vision  of  a  blond  ruffian  putting  the  key  in  the  padlock 
and  taking  out  of  the  box  those  eight  buckskin  sacks, 
each  branded  with  the  plain  "  J.  M."  lettering  and  each 
containing  287  ounces  of  the  beautiful  "ruby  sand" 
gold  dust.  But  it  was  very  heavy  —  that  treasure  — 
it  weighed  about  190  pounds.  How  would  he  make 
away  with  it  ?  I  heard  the  rattle  of  a  whiffletree  out 
side  in  the  street  and  the  crunching  of  heavy  wheels  in 
the  soft  tundra,  the  angry  call  of  a  driver  and  the  crack 
of  a  whip.  Why,  my  infamous  roommate  might  easily 
take  the  gold  away  in  that  wagon ! 

Then  I  heard  other  calls,  the  barkings  of  dogs  and  the 
laugh  of  a  woman.  The  whole  sleepless,  busy,  tent- 
and-shanty  city  was  still  awake  and  astir,  and  it  must 
have  been  after  eleven  o'clock.  In  the  Arctic  in  June 
eleven  at  night  is  not  late,  and  at  Nome  you  really 
have  no  night  in  the  summer;  but  in  September,  when 
there  is  more  than  a  hint  of  the  near  approach  of  the 
long  winter,  it  is  dark  enough  at  eight.  Yet  there  was 
so  much  feverish  activity  among  the  gold-seekers  and 
those  who  followed  them  to  leech  away  their  gold,  that 
the  foolish  system  of  staying  up  all  night,  so  prevalent 


The  Lure  o9  Gold 

in  other  Arctic  mining  camps,  was  adhered  to  in  this 
oddest  of  all  gold-diggings  in  the  world.  And  how 
could  anybody,  like  myself,  who  really  wanted  and 
needed  sleep,  find  it  in  such  a  wild,  noisy,  bustling 
place  as  this  Nome  ? 

Nome!  What  a  leaping  inspiration  the  name  had 
been  to  me !  What  a  loadstone  it  had  been  to  the  thou 
sands  who  were  now  crowding  its  crooked  streets !  What 
a  golden  hope!  What  a  lure!  My  thoughts  ran  far 
over  the  tundra  and  up  the  yellow  Yukon  to  the  Klon 
dike  from  which  my  father  and  I  had  come  in  the  early 
summer.  In  the  Klondike  we  had  felt  the  frustration, 
the  depression  and  the  bitterness  of  the  late  comers  — 
the  men  who  were  in  at  the  tail  of  the  stampede.  Not 
but  that  my  father  was  seasoned  to  defeat,  though  he 
had  never  been  soured  by  it.  He  was  an  old  Califor- 
nian  miner  and  had  seen  many  a  fair  prospect  melt  away. 
Of  late  years  he  had  been  making  a  modest  living  as  a 
mining  secretary  in  the  office  of  a  San  Francisco  com 
pany.  When  the  Klondike  rush  set  in  he  had  felt  the 
old  gold  fever  stirring  in  his  blood,  but  he  hesitated  for 
months  about  going.  Finally  the  impulse  became  too 
strong  for  him  to  resist  any  longer,  and  he  declared  that 
he  would  go  to  the  gold  fields  and  take  me  with  him. 


My  Burden  of  Treasure 

We  sailed  from  our  home  city  up  through  the  wonder 
ful  Inland  Passage,  threading  among  fairy  summer 
islands  —  up  toward  what  seemed  to  me  the  golden 
top  of  the  world  —  up  past  shores  on  which  in  those 
June  days  it  seemed  always  afternoon  —  up  past  the 
mysterious  Taku  Inlet,  to  Dyea  and  thence  by  the  trail 
over  the  rough  Chilkoot  and  down  by  Lake  Linder- 
mann,  Lake  Bennett  and  the  swift-flowing  upper 
reaches  of  the  Yukon,  over  the  tragic  White  Horse 
Rapids  and  down  to  Dawson. 

But  we  were  too  late.  There  is  no  gold  at  the  tail 
of  the  stampede  —  no  gold,  only  the  galling  regret, 
"  Had  we  but  been  among  the  first ! "  Our  means  were 
running  low  and  we  could  make  but  a  short  stay  in 
Dawson.  After  the  weary  pilgrimages  in  which  we 
sweated  under  the  hot,  searching,  ever-shining  sun  and 
fought  the  mosquitoes  up  and  down  the  creeks  after 
vanishing  golden  Meccas,  my  father  was  offered  a  posi 
tion  as  bookkeeper  at  St.  Michael's,  a  small  trading 
post  near  the  lower  end  of  the  Yukon,  a  thousand  miles 
away,  and  he  hastened  there  before  his  last  dollar 
should  be  gone,  that  he  might  earn  passage  money  for 
the  two  of  us  in  some  homebound  vessel. 

I  now  thought  of  that  wonderful  river  journey,  the 
[7] 


The  Lure  o9  Gold 

grandest  I  had  ever  made,  down  that  broad  and  beauti 
ful  Yukon,  steaming  by  banks  lined  mile  on  mile  with 
silent  armies  of  spruces,  or  by  inspiring  cliffs,  splashed 
with  red  and  yellow,  or  along  great  sweeps  of  tundra 
over  which  I  saw  the  weirdest  cloud  piles,  electric 
storms  and  majestic  plays  of  sunlight;  on  down  by  the 
villages  of  the  wild  Esquimaux,  from  which  strange 
women  would  run  out  to  secure  the  boats  that  would 
have  been  sent  adrift  by  the  great  wave  from  our  paddle- 
wheel;  and  so  on  through  the  broad  mouth  of  the  river, 
into  the  great  Norton  Sound  and  on  to  the  low-lying 
island  where  the  roofs  of  St.  Michael's  greeted  my  eyes. 
There  my  father  found  that  the  position  he  had  come 
so  far  to  take  had  been  given  to  another  man.  But  he 
was  not  downcast.  He  was  a  plucky  man,  that  strict- 
living,  abstemious  almost  Puritanical  father  of  mine, 
and  he  walked  the  streets  of  the  little  town  day  after  day, 
looking  for  any  sort  of  work  with  which  to  earn  the 
coveted  passage  money.  At  last  we  secured  positions 
as  carpenters'  helpers,  for  which  service  we  were  so 
well  paid  that  in  a  short  time  we  had  enough  money  to 
buy  second-class  passage  to  San  Francisco. 

But  just  as  we  were  about  to  purchase  our  tickets  and 
go  aboard  the  steamer  the  news  came  flying  down  the 

[8] 


My  Burden  of  Treasure 

coast  that  up  on  the  Cape  Nome  beach,  a  hundred 
miles  north,  gold  had  been  discovered  in  the  sands  and 
that  three  men  had  washed  out  a  thousand  dollars  in  a 
single  day. 

At  first  my  father  shook  his  head,  but  when  a  man 
in  whom  he  had  unlimited  confidence  assured  him  that 
the  story  was  true  and  that  by  hurrying  to  the  beach 
and  getting  in  at  the  head  of  the  new  stampede  he  could 
make  an  easy  fortune,  he  hesitated  no  longer,  and  we 
set  sail  in  a  small  steam  schooner  for  the  new  Eldorado. 
There  were  not  many  miners  on  the  beach  when  we  ar 
rived,  but  though  we  were  almost  in  the  vanguard  of 
the  great  army  that  was  to  follow,  the  hope  of  securing 
even  a  "grub  stake"  seemed  at  the  first  sight  a  des 
perate  one. 

Looking  back  as  I  lay  there  that  night  in  the  Golden 
North  Hotel  I  could  see  the  whole  picture:  Before  us, 
just  at  the  eastern  rim  of  the  broad  Bering,  stretched 
a  gray,  desolate,  forbidding  shore,  wind-swept,  bare, 
low-lying,  mist-haunted,  with  here  and  there  a  dreary 
heap  of  drift  over  which  mournful-voiced  sea-fowl 
wheeled  and  cried. 

When  my  father  saw  the  gray  picture,  I  knew  at  once 
by  the  sad  look  in  his  brown  eyes  that  he  was  bitterly 

[9] 


The  Lure  oy  Gold 

disappointed.     Being  an  old  miner,  he  knew  the  "  lay  " 
of  gold  fields  as  well  as  any  one  I  had  ever  seen. 

"Of  all  the  unlikely  places  to  find  gold,"  he  said, 
"this  is  the  most  unlikely.  Those  low-lying  hills,"  he 
went  on,  pointing  to  the  east,  "this  long,  wide  strip  of 
tundra,  and  then  the  beach  —  why,  it's  absurd !  There 
is  no  place  for  the  gold  to  wash  down  from.  There  are 
such  things  as  beach  diggings,  of  course,  but  gold  is 
secured  there  only  in  limited  quantities.  Still,  they 
say  'gold  is  where  you  find  it,'  and  there  may  be  more 
than  a  little  thin  pay-streak  here,  but  I  doubt  it.  Let's 
get  ashore,  my  boy,  and  find  out  the  worst.  We'll  not 
waste  much  time  here." 

I  remember  how  I  shivered  when  I  splashed  through 
the  low  waves  beyond  the  surf  when  our  boat  was 
beached  and  we  carried  our  packs  ashore.  How  cold 
the  water  was!  Within  an  hour  after  our  arrival  we 
had  staked  our  claim  and  had  prospected  it. 

"  Six  dollars  in  the  very  first  pan,"  said  my  father  to  me 
in  a  low,  hoarse  tone.  I  had  never  seen  him  so  excited. 

He  worked  like  a  slave  all  that  first  day  and  night, 
digging  and  washing  the  gold,  and  I  worked  with  him, 
cold  and  stiff  and  only  half-fed,  for  we  hardly  took  time 
to  prepare  and  eat  our  meals. 

[10] 


My  Burden  of  Treasure 

And  then  followed  the  weeks  of  hard  labor,  shoveling 
the  sand  and  carrying  water  from  the  sea  and  washing 
the  "  dirt "  —  rock,  rock,  rocking  our  little  machine  and 
cleaning  up  every  night  many  ounces  of  the  shining  dust. 
The  new,  clean-looking  buckskin  sacks  we  had  brought 
from  San  Francisco  and  had  given  up  all  hope  of  ever 
filling  were  soon  bulging  and  heavy  with  gold.  We  had 
not  washed  out  one-half  of  our  little  strip  of  beach  be 
fore  it  became  apparent  that  we  should  soon  have  a 
fortune. 

But  in  the  midst  of  our  exultation  over  our  splendid 
prospects  my  father  was  laid  low  with  fever.  He  had 
drank  the  evil  tundra  water,  and  in  his  overworked  and 
weak  state  it  had  poisoned  his  system.  I  cared  for  him 
in  our  little  tent  on  the  sand,  and  procured  medical  ser 
vice  for  him  from  among  the  many  hundreds  that  came 
thronging  to  the  golden  beach.  But  at  the  end  of  a 
month  he  was  still  barely  able  to  lift  his  head.  The 
doctor  told  him  that  his  only  chance  of  recovery  was  to 
leave  the  place,  and  he  offered  to  see  him  safely  aboard 
ship  and  take  him  down  to  San  Francisco  with  him,  as 
he  was  sailing  back  to  that  port.  The  sick  man  was 
extremely  loath  to  go,  and  for  a  time  insisted  on  remain 
ing,  that  he  might  help  to  clean  up  the  fortune  that 


The  Lure  o'  Gold 

awaited  us  on  the  beach.  But  the  doctor  finally  per 
suaded  him  that  to  go  back  home  was  the  only  wise 
course  left  for  him.  I  saw  the  force  of  this  reasoning 
and,  much  against  his  will,  my  poor,  weak  father  was 
made  to  see  it,  too,  though  he  groaned  when  he  thought 
of  leaving  the  fortune  that  seemed  within  his  grasp. 

"  You  can't  stay  here,  Mr.  Morning,  and  drink  that 
water  and  live  on  pork  and  peans  and  canned  stuff,'* 
said  the  doctor  with  a  tone  of  authority.  "They're 
almost  enough  to  kill  a  well  man." 

"  But  the  mine  —  we  must  wash  out  that  sand." 

"  Oh,  leave  the  mine  in  charge  of  this  young  man," 
said  the  doctor.  "He's  tough.  He'll  see  it  through 
and  bring  the  gold  home  safely." 

"Do  you  think  you  could  do  it,  John?"  asked  my 
father,  with  just  a  little  apprehension  in  his  tone,  which 
was  natural,  as  it  probably  seemed  to  him  that  it  was 
only  the  other  day  when  he  had  whaled  me  for  some 
childish  folly.  Still  he  must  have  seen  what  bulging 
muscles  I  was  bringing  to  bear,  shoveling  on  the  pay- 
streak,  and  he  must  have  seen  that  by  this  time  I  had 
learned  never  to  fill  the  rocker  too  full  nor  to  let  the 
water  splash  out  of  it  while  it  was  in  operation. 

So  it  was  decided  that  he  should  go  back  home  and 
[12] 


My  Burden  of  Treasure 

be  nursed  by  my  mother  and  be  given  proper  diet  and 
attention.  As  soon  as  he  sailed  —  it  was  the  most  de 
pressing  morning  of  my  existence  —  I  hired  men  and 
set  to  work  constructing  sluice-boxes,  as  I  wanted  to 
hasten  the  washing.  I  bought  sea-water  from  a  pump 
ing  outfit,  and  soon  was  cleaning  up  every  night  from 
my  riffle-box  four  times  the  amount  of  gold  that  it  would 
have  been  possible  to  wash  in  the  rocker  in  a  single  day. 
In  six  weeks  I  had  washed  out  the  last  shovelful  of  the 
pay-streak,  and  after  settling  accounts  with  my  men 
and  paying  my  water  bill  and  other  expenses  I  had 
left,  as  nearly  as  I  could  compute  it  on  my  gold  scales, 
a  little  over  $41,000  worth  of  dust. 

And  now  on  the  morrow  I  would  be  aboard  ship 
bright  and  early  and  off  for  dear  old  San  Francisco,  to 
surprise  my  good  people  with  the  wonderful  tale  of 
what  our  little  strip  of  beach  sand  had  washed  out. 
There  it  was  in  that  box  in  the  landlord's  closet  —  a 
fortune.  Not  a  large  fortune,  but  enough  for  me  and 
mine  for  the  rest  of  our  days.  And  it  represented  to 
me  more  than  the  mere  dust  in  the  box.  It  represented 
four  years  at  Stanford,  a  trip  to  Europe,  a  home-com 
ing,  a  settling  down  to  "  the  one  honest  business  in  the 
world,"  as  my  father  had  called  that  of  mining,  in  which, 

[13] 


The  Lure  o9  Gold 

to  still  further  quote  my  philosophic  parent,  "you 
robbed  no  man  and  profited  by  no  man's  needs,  nor 
his  ills,  nor  his  contentions." 

But  the  treasure  was  not  yet  safe  in  the  San  Fran 
cisco  Mint  at  the  time  I  lay  there  in  my  hard  bed  in  the 
Golden  North  Hotel,  and  awaited  the  coming  of  the 
mysterious  light-haired  man  who  should  occupy  that 
other  pillowless  bed  three  feet  from  mine.  When 
would  he  ever  come  ?  Perhaps  he  was  an  all-night 
prowler  and  was  off  after  other  people's  gold,  not  know 
ing  how  near  to  his  bed  lay  another  and  perhaps 
easier  victim.  With  my  hand  on  that  particular 
and  most  comforting  lump  of  the  mattress  which 
represented  the  five  hundred  dollars'  worth  of  gold 
dust,  I  somehow  grew  a  little  easier  of  mind  and  at  last 
dozed  off. 

It  did  not  seem  that  I  had  more  than  dropped  into 
slumber  before  I  leaped  up  in  bed,  startled  into  sudden 
consciousness  by  the  creaking  of  the  crazy  door.  I 
did  not  say  a  word,  but  my  hand  involuntarily  sought 
the  cold  barrel  of  my  rifle,  and  my  fingers  remained 
rigidly  fixed  upon  it  while  I  heard  the  shuffling  of  a  pair 
of  feet  on  the  bare  floor,  the  closing  of  the  door  and  a 
rustling  of  clothing.  I  hardly  believe  that  I  breathed 

[14] 


My  Burden  of  Treasure 

more  than  once  during  all  this,  but  sat  still  as  a  post, 
staring  out  through  the  darkness. 

My  roommate  —  for  I  judged  that  it  was  he  — 
struck  his  foot  against  the  corner  of  my  bed,  and  then  I 
could  feel  his  leg  press  the  edge  of  the  cover.  Was  he 
going  to  try  to  choke  me  to  death,  or  stab  me  in  my 
sleep,  and  then  take  the  gold  and  the  key  of  the  box  ? 
Well,  he  should  not  have  them  without  a  struggle. 
He  was  so  near  to  me  now  that  I  could  hear  him  breathe. 
Suddenly  my  alert  ears  caught  the  sound  of  a  sharp 
click.  I  did  not  fancy  that  sound  in  the  least,  it 
could  be  nothing  less  than  the  cocking  of  a  revolver. 
So  instead  of  being  choked  or  stabbed,  I  was  to  be  shot 
or  threatened  with  a  pistol.  I  pulled  the  rifle  toward 
me.  If  it  was  to  be  too  close  range  for  firing  my  weapon, 
I  could  at  least  give  my  man  the  butt. 

I  heard  a  scratch  and  a  match  burst  into  a  bright 
flame  before  my  astonished  eyes.  Then  it  was  the 
clicking  of  a  metal  matchbox  that  I  had  heard  and  not 
that  of  a  revolver!  My  man  saw  the  candle  I  had  left 
on  the  small  dry-goods  box  which  served  for  a  table. 
He  applied  the  match  to  the  wick,  which  soon  flamed 
up,  revealing  the  round  and  familiar  face  of  Doctor 
Philip  Quaritch,  —  of  Doctor  Quaritch,  jolly,  good- 

[15] 


The  Lure  o'  Gold 

natured  Doctor  Quaritch,  —  who  had  been  the  friend 
of  our  family  ever  since  I  wore  kilts ! 

He  was  a  ship's  doctor,  this  old  friend  of  ours,  and 
nearly  every  time  his  steamer  came  into  port  —  which 
was  generally  a  matter  of  two  or  three  months  —  he 
would  come  to  our  house  and  partake  of  the  best  cheer 
it  afforded.  Doctor  Quaritch  had  known  my  father 
when  he  mined  in  Calaveras  County  in  the  early  days. 
They  had  come  out  from  the  East  as  boys,  and  had 
shared  a  lot  of  hard  luck  together  on  the  plains  and  in 
the  mountains.  At  that  moment  of  my  mental  dis 
composure  I  could  not  have  named  anybody  that  I 
should  have  been  happier  to  meet  than  dear  old  Doc 
tor  Quaritch. 


[16] 


II 


ADVICE  FROM  DOCTOR  QUARITCH 

r 

"  WELL,  well,"  said  the  Doctor,  his  round,  blue  eyes 
opening  wide  as  he  stared  at  me,  sitting  stock-still 
there,  holding  my  rifle  in  my  hands.  "You  wouldn't 
shoot  me,  would  you,  young  man?  Put  your  gun 
away." 

There  was  no  look  of  recognition  in  the  startled 
eyes.  The  Doctor  was  gazing  at  me  as  upon  a  stranger. 
I  thought,  as  I  quietly  slipped  the  rifle  into  its  place  at 
the  head  of  the  bed,  that  my  face  must  have  changed  a 
great  deal  in  the  past  year,  and  it  occurred  to  me  that 
a  growing  line  of  dark  color  on  my  upper  lip  —  to  which 
line  I  had  given  much  careful  attention  —  must  ap 
preciably  have  altered  my  appearance.  I  felt  the  blue 
eyes  studying  me  curiously,  while  my  blood  was  chang 
ing  from  the  chill  of  alarm  to  the  warmth  of  assurance. 
Suddenly  the  eyes  blazed  forth  in  full  recognition. 

"  Why,  John  Morning ! "  cried  the  Doctor,  in  his 
great  booming  voice,  grasping  my  hand  and  giving  it  a 

[17] 


•The  Lure  o'  Gold 

regular  milkman's  grip.  "  Is  it  really  you  ?  Why,  of 
course  it  is!  I'd  know  the  son  of  William  Morning 
anywhere,  by  his  father's  big  brown  eyes  and  square 
lower  jaw,  to  say  nothing  of  that  nose.  How  are  you, 
John,  my  lad,  and  how  did  you  get  away  up  here  ?  " 

"I'm  pretty  well,  thank  you,  Doctor  Quaritch," 
said  I,  "and  I'm  awfully  glad  it's  you.  I  thought  it 
might  be  —  well,  I  didn't  know  who  it  might  be." 

"  So  you  were  prepared,  eh  ? "  he  laughed,  glancing 
at  the  rifle.  "  But  what  are  you  doing  here  ?  I 
thought  you  and  your  father  were  in  the  Klondike." 

"So  we  were;  but  we  couldn't  strike  pay  there,  and 
so  we  came  over  this  way." 

While  he  sat  on  the  edge  of  his  bed,  with  his  short 
legs  hanging  over,  his  face  alight  with  friendship  and 
his  merry  blue  eyes  agleam,  I  told  him  of  our  adven 
tures  and  of  the  fortune  we  had  made. 

"It's  too  bad  he  took  that  fever,"  he  said,  referring 
to  my  father,  his  eyes  full  of  kindly  sympathy,  "but  it 
couldn't  have  been  typhoid;  probably  only  a  malarial 
disorder  —  what  our  distinguished  medical  friend 
Shakespeare  would  call  'a  distemper  of  the  blood.' 
Wish  I  had  been  here.  I  might  have  seen  what  a  ship's 
doctor  could  have  done  for  him.  But  your  good  luck 

[18] 


Advice  from  Doctor  Quaritch 

in  the  diggings  —  that  was  fine.  Let  me  congratulate 
you,  John." 

"  Thank  you,"  said  I.  We  talked  about  the  treasure 
for  a  while.  "  Are  you  still  with  the  Modesto  ?  "  I  asked, 
remembering  the  times  I  had  accompanied  him  aboard 
that  old  steamer,  as  she  lay  along  the  musty  docks. 
And  at  the  mention  of  the  name  I  could  almost  sniff 
the  pungent  odor  of  the  drugs  in  the  stuffy  little  state 
room,  and  see  the  rolls  of  bandages  and  the  mysterious 
and  evil-looking  instruments  in  the  little  sea-chest. 

"Yes,  yes;  still  aboard  the  old  Modesto,"  he  said, 
picking  up  the  black  bag  with  the  "  R.  N."  marked 
upon  it,  and  opening  it  meditatively,  and,  as  I  thought, 
a  little  awkwardly,  which  was  explained  by  his  saying: 
"This  isn't  my  valise.  It's  one  I  borrowed  from  Mr. 
Nason,  our  first  officer.  These  are  his  initials  here. 
Nason  is  a  mighty  good  fellow,  and  he  sails  in  a  mighty 
good  ship.  Yes,  the  Modesto's  all  right.  Not  much 
for  speed  alongside  some  of  those  new  steel  greyhounds, 
but  she's  staunch  and  steady,  my  son,  and  I  like  the 
feel  of  her  deck  under  my  feet  better  than  that  of  any 
craft  I  was  ever  aboard  of.  Her  machinery  doesn't 
shake  you  all  to  pieces.  Why,  some  of  those  boats 
make  you  feel  as  if  you  were  riding  on  a  camel  that  had 

[19] 


The  Lure  o'  Gold 

palpitation  of  the  heart;  but  the  Modesto  is  steady  as  a 
church.'* 

"  No  doubt  of  it,  sir,"  said  I,  with  a  slight  feeling  of 
duplicity,  for  I  was  mentally  making  allowances  for 
the  Doctor's  strong  attachment  to  his  steamer,  which  I 
had  heard  at  least  one  marine  man  along  the  San  Fran 
cisco  water  front  refer  to  as  "  the  crankiest  old  tub  on 
the  Pacific."  But  men  who  sail  often  in  a  vessel  are 
likely  to  come  to  have  a  strong  affection  for  her,  and 
the  Doctor's  remarks  about  his  ship  seemed  quite 
natural  to  me,  and  full  of  a  laudable  loyalty. 

The  Doctor  took  his  pipe  from  his  bag  and,  lighting 
it,  proceeded  nearly  to  stifle  me  with  prodigious  clouds 
of  tobacco  smoke,  which  soon  filled  that  close  little 
room.  When,  at  last,  after  much  polite  repression,  I 
choked  and  coughed,  he  laid  aside  his  pipe,  ceased  his 
yarning  about  his  ship  and  raised  the  window  sash  about 
two  inches  from  the  bottom. 

"A  sanitary  measure,"  he  remarked,  but  I  doubt  if 
he  would  have  admitted  even  that  small  allowance  of 
oxygen  (such  is  the  contradictory  nature  of  some  of  the 
wise  gentlemen  who  have  the  world's  health  in  charge) 
had  I  not  shown  signs  of  approaching  asphyxiation. 
"Very  sorry  you're  sailing  to-morrow,  John.  What 
[20] 


Advice  from  Doctor  Quaritch 

vessel  you  say  —  the  Flying  Mist  ?  Don't  know 
her." 

"She's  a  steam  schooner  of  a  peculiar  rig,"  said  I. 
"  She  has  a  very  tall,  slim  funnel,  almost  as  high  as  an 
ordinary  mast,  and  it  is  used  as  a  mast  for  the  main 
sail." 

The  Doctor  looked  at  me  with  frank  incredulity. 

"  Oh,  no, "  said  he,  decisively.  "  Nothing  of  the  sort. 
I  have  sailed  about  a  good  bit.  There  isn't  any  such 
craft  as  that  afloat,  my  boy." 

"  All  right,  Doctor,"  said  I,  smiling  and  fanning  the 
latest  besetting  and  most  obnoxious  cloud  of  smoke 
away  from  me  with  my  hand.  "  Just  wait  and  see." 

"  Where  does  your  Flying  Mist  sail  for  ?  " 

"  For  Seattle.  From  there  I  go  down  by  the  railroad. 
It  will  be  quicker  that  way,  won't  it  ?  " 

"Well,  perhaps;  but  if  you  waited  four  days  and 
went  down  by  the  Modesto,  you  wouldn't  be  much  later. 
She'll  take  about  twelve  days  to  San  Francisco,  if  there's 
the  right  kind  of  weather;  and  then  you  could  go  down 
along  with  me." 

"I  should  enjoy  that  very  much,"  said  I,  "but  it 
would  mean  getting  home  in  sixteen  days.  By  sailing 
on  the  Flying  Mist  to-morrow  I  shall  arrive  in  ten  days." 

[21] 


The  Lure  o9  Gold 

"  Well,  only  six  days'  difference.     What's  the  rush  ?  " 

It  is  hard  for  a  man  who  is  never  in  a  hurry  to  appre 
ciate  the  burning  haste  of  a  youth  anxious  to  get  home 
with  a  box  of  treasure.  But  some  of  the  things  he  said 
at  that  time  were  well  remembered  by  me  afterward. 

The  Flying  Mist  was  evidently  a  strange,  irregular 
sort  of  craft,  so  the  Doctor  thought,  if  she  really  did 
blow  smoke  through  her  mast.  Men  who  would  sail 
such  a  vessel  ought  to  be  treated  with  suspicion.  And 
even  if  a  safe  landing  of  the  gold  were  effected  at  Seattle, 
the  extra  transfer  of  it  to  the  railroad  involved  an  extra 
risk.  If  it  were  to  go  aboard  the  Modesto,  where  he 
knew  the  purser  as  well  as  he  knew  his  own  name,  there 
would  be  no  extra  handling  save  from  the  dock  to  the 
Mint,  which  transfer,  in  civilized  San  Francisco,  was 
safe  enough.  To  wait  and  sail  with  him  would  be  the 
better  way. 

"  But  my  passage  is  paid,"  said  I,  with  a  strong  note 
of  finality;  for  I  did  not  wish  to  wait  for  the  sailing  of 
the  Modesto,  although  I  should  have  been  glad  of  the 
Doctor's  company.  "I  paid  it  yesterday  to  Captain 
Transome,  and  I'm  afraid  I'll  have  to  go  in  his  vessel." 

"Very  well,"  said  the  Doctor,  in  the  same  tone  he 
would  probably  have  used  in  giving  up  a  patient  with  a 

[22] 


Advice  from  Doctor  Quaritcfi 

fatal  illness.  "  But  remember,  I  don't  like  your  Flying 
Mist.  There's  something  devilish  about  this  blowing 
smoke  through  a  mainmast.  Makes  me  think  of 
Mephisto's  doings  in  '  Faust/  I'm  not  as  suspicious  as 
many  men  who  sail  the  seas,  but  you  wouldn't  catch  me 
aboard  of  such  an  outlandish  craft.  I  wonder  they  are 
ever  able  to  ship  a  crew." 

He  picked  up  his  pipe,  as  if  he  would  like  to  exorcise 
some  unseen  imp  by  its  smoke,  but  noticing  that  I  was 
holding  my  head  as  near  to  the  window  vent  as  possible 
he  laid  it  down  with  a  sigh,  said  "Good-night,"  and 
was  soon  abed,  and,  though  perhaps  I  should  not  re 
cord  it  of  so  worthy  a  man,  snoring  lustily. 


[23] 


Ill 


ON  THE  LIGHTER  MY  BURDEN  GROWS 
HEAVIER 


DOCTOR  QUARITCH  was  still  asleep  the  next  morning 
when  I  arose  early,  dressed  and  went  down  to  eat  my 
hurried  breakfast.  I  thought  it  best  not  to  disturb  my 
friend  with  my  adieus,  so  I  left  a  note  with  the  landlord, 
saying  "good-bye,"  and  telling  the  Doctor  that  I  hoped 
to  see  him  soon  in  San  Francisco. 

With  my  rifle  over  my  shoulder,  I  followed  the  wheel 
barrow  in  which  my  treasure-box  was  being  trans 
ported  to  the  beach.  Everyone  in  the  crowd  along  the 
street  recognized  the  nature  of  the  freight  in  the  barrow, 
and  once  I  overheard  the  remark  among  the  miners: 

"  He's  rather  a  young  chap  to  have  charge  of  all  that 
dust." 

"  Looks  like  he  knew  how  to  take  care  of  it,  though," 
was  the  reply. 

I  suppose  I  did  look  rather  grim  and  formidable, 
with  my  set  face  and  my  hard  grip  upon  the  barrel  of 

[24] 


My  Burden  Grows  Heavier 

the  rifle.  I  confess,  however,  that  while  I  should  not 
have  been  loath  to  level  my  weapon  at  anyone  who 
might  seek  to  rob  me  of  that  precious  box,  pressing  the 
trigger  would  have  been  a  matter  very  little  to  my  taste. 
But  as  everybody  I  met  was  civil  enough  and  respect 
fully  turned  aside  for  my  wheelbarrow  load  of  gold, 
there  seemed  to  be  no  need  of  any  really  hostile  demon 
stration  on  my  part. 

Soon  we  reached  the  beach  where  the  lighter  lay. 
Beyond  the  flat,  dark,  little  craft,  which  was  bobbing 
on  the  low  waves  just  out  of  reach  of  the  white  surf, 
was  a  world  of  unquiet,  chilly  water  on  which  the  sun 
—hanging  rather  low  over  the  blue  Bering  in  these 
early  autumn  months  —  glinted  as  upon  a  surface  of 
steel.  There  was  a  harsh,  cutting  breeze  astir  and  the 
air  was  wonderfully  clear,  bringing  the  little  bristle  of 
masts  and  funnels  in  the  offing  within  ready  reach  of 
the  eye.  I  could  easily  make  out  the  tall,  lean  stack 
of  the  Flying  Mist,  and  wished  that  Doctor  Quaritch 
might  have  been  there  that  I  might  convince  him  of  the 
fact  that  she  blew  smoke  through  her  mainmast. 

It  was  rather  heavy  wheeling  in  the  sand,  and  my 
man  breathed  hard  as  he  pushed  upon  the  handles  of 
the  barrow.  I  had  thought  to  have  him  wheel  the 

[25] 


The  Lure  o9  Gold 

treasure-box  up  the  long  gang-plank  and  to  have  it 
deposited  on  the  deck  of  the  lighter  at  once;  but  the 
lighterman  —  a  rough-looking  chap  in  blue  overalls 
and  blanket  coat,  and  with  a  grayish,  stubbly  face  — 
shook  his  head. 

"  For  the  Flying  Mist  ?  "  he  asked.  "  You'll  have  to 
wait  till  the  Captain  comes." 

"  She's  to  sail  at  ten,  isn't  she  ?  "  I  asked,  "  and  it's 
nine  now.  Can't  I  come  aboard  with  my  box  and  see 
that  it  is  safeguarded  ?  " 

"Your  treasure?"  he  sniffed,  insolently.  "How 
much  d'yeh  s'pose  yeh  got  in  that  there  box  ?  'Nough 
to  buy  a  farm  ?  Jest  because  yeh  got  a  little  dust  an'  a 
gun  yeh  needn't  think  to  hurry  or  bully  me." 

"I  don't  wish  to  hurry  or  bully  anybody,"  I  said 
with  rising  heat;  for  the  fellow's  bad  temper  provoked 
a  quick  resentment  in  me,  "  but  I  want  to  see  this  gold 
safely  aboard  the  schooner  and  into  the  purser's  hands." 

"Guess  the  Captain's  the  only  purser  aboard  the 
schooner,"  he  said,  grinning  and  biting  off  a  chunk  of 
tobacco  from  a  huge  plug  he  held  in  his  hand,  "  an'  yer 
gold  will  be  jest  as  safe  on  the  beach  'till  he  comes  as  if 
it  was  on  the  lighter.  I've  got  my  orders  an'  yeh  can't 
come  aboard  now.  Dump  yer  box  on  the  beach  and 

[26] 


My  Burden  Grows  Heavier 

stan'  over  it  with  yer  gun,  if  yeh  wanter;  but,"  he  added, 
with  a  bantering  tone  not  at  all  appreciated  by  me,  "  I 
don't  know  whether  yeh  can  handle  a  gun  —  might 
shoot  some  innercent  passenger  by  mistake." 

A  few  of  the  passengers  who  had  collected  near  the 
plank  and  were  enjoying  the  colloquy  laughed  loudly 
at  this.  They  took  a  large  interest  in  the  dumping  of 
the  treasure-box  into  the  sand,  where  it  lay  solidly 
enough,  just  beyond  the  reach  of  the  last  ripple  of  white 
water  that  ran  up  from  the  low  waves.  I  paid  my  man 
his  dollar  and  felt  singularly  lonely  and  moody  when  I 
saw  him  trundle  his  wheelbarrow  off  up  the  beach.  I 
sat  down  on  my  box,  my  rifle  across  my  lap,  and  my 
feet  working  nervously  in  the  sand.  Some  of  the  Fly 
ing  Mist's  passengers  —  there  were  not  above  a  dozen 
in  all  —  strolled  near  me,  one  or  two  at  a  time,  and 
asked  me  what  I  considered  impertinent  questions  about 
my  gold  —  whether  it  belonged  to  me  or  whether  I  was 
guarding  it  for  another  person;  whether  I  didn't  think 
I  was  too  young  to  be  taking  care  of  so  much  dust,  and 
whether  I  shouldn't  have  help  to  see  it  safely  aboard. 

"It's  too  bad  they  haven't  got  a  regular  shipping 
company  to  handle  such  freight,"  remarked  that  one  of 
my  inquisitors  for  whom  I  felt  the  least  repulsion.  "  I 

[27] 


The  Lure  o  Gold 

hear  the  A.  C.  Company  will  open  an  office  here  next 
week.  If  you  had  waited  you  might  have  shipped 
with  them." 

"  Oh,  the  gold's  all  right,"  said  another  man  who  had 
just  come  up.  "  Nobody'll  bother  it.  This  is  an  honest 
camp." 

These  latter  words  were  spoken  in  a  soft,  smooth 
voice,  quite  gentlemanly  in  tone  and  very  acceptable 
to  my  ears  in  contrast  with  the  harsh  accents  of  the 
other  men.  But  as  I  looked  up  at  the  speaker  I  cannot 
say  that  I  was  drawn  to  him.  He  was  neatly  dressed 
in  a  quiet  tweed  suit  and  wore  one  of  those  soft,  wide- 
brimmed  hats  so  much  affected  by  Alaskan  miners  in 
the  summer  time,  only  that  this  hat,  instead  of  being 
soiled  and  battered  like  most  of  them,  was  clean  and 
neatly  dented  in  its  four  sides.  Yet  the  smoothly 
shaven  face  was  not  one  to  inspire  confidence.  The 
mouth  and  nose  were  regular  enough,  but  in  the  matter 
of  vision  there  was  a  pronounced  and  what  seemed  to 
me  sinister  irregularity.  In  short,  the  man  lacked  an 
eye,  his  right  peephole  being  entirely  closed .  Now 
there  is  no  doubt  many  a  highly  respectable  and  good- 
natured  gentleman  going  about  with  but  a  single  eye; 
but,  perhaps  through  some  defect  of  my  nature,  such  a 

[28] 


My  Burden  Grows  Heavier 

person  is  always  repellent  to  me  unless  he  is  able  suc 
cessfully  to  conceal  the  loss  by  wearing  a  glass  sub 
stitute  for  the  missing  orb  of  vision.  The  man  who 
stood  before  me  boasted  no  such  substitute,  and,  in 
spite  of  his  steady  smile,  there  was  something  so  abhor 
rent  to  me  in  the  sight  of  that  drawn  blind  in  the  window 
of  his  soul  that  I  could  hardly  look  at  him  without  a 
shudder. 

"  Ah,  my  lad,  "  he  said  to  me  very  pleasantly,  "  you've 
got  quite  a  burden  there.  Do  you  think  you  can  get  it 
safely  aboard  ship  ?  I'm  sailing  down  the  coast  my 
self,  and  so  is  this  gentleman  here  with  me;  and  if  we 
can  be  of  any  service  to  you,  just  let  us  know." 

He  pushed  forward  through  the  crowd  a  small  but 
very  straight  man,  with  a  round  head  on  which  was  a 
blue  golf  cap.  This  man  had  a  pink  face  and  a  very 
red  nose.  He  wore  a  dark-brown  sweater  and  loose 
trousers  which  accentuated  the  shortness  of  his  legs. 

"  Yes,"  said  the  pink-faced  man,  "  I'll  be  glad  to  help 
you.  I've  had  the  care  of  gold  dust  myself,  and  know 
what  a  nuisance  it  is." 

"Thank  you,"  said  I,  shifting  my  rifle  so  that  the 
butt  of  it  rested  in  the  sand  between  my  feet,  "  but  I'm 
getting  along  all  right.  As  soon  as  the  Captain  comes 

[29] 


The  Lure  o9  Gold 

I  can  go  aboard  the  lighter.  Then  if  you  want  to  lend 
me  a  hand  with  my  box  I  shall  be  glad  of  your  assist 
ance." 

"Nome  is  a  great  place,"  ventured  the  pink-faced 
man,  nodding  toward  the  town.  "Strangest  mining 
camp  I  was  ever  in,  and  I've  been  pretty  much  all  over 
the  coast.  Everybody  is  jumping  everybody's  claim 
now.  My  friend  here  has  written  some  verses  on  the 
claim-jumpers.  Maybe  you'd  like  to  hear  them." 

I  was  not  in  the  mood  to  have  poetry  read  to  me,  and 
particularly  by  a  one-eyed  man,  but  the  poet  produced 
his  little  manuscript  from  his  inside  coat  pocket  and 
read  his  verse  with  great  gusto  and  an  indescribable 
sing-song,  while  the  other  passengers  gathered  about. 
At  the  close  of  the  reading  of  the  jingle  —  for  it  was 
hardly  more  —  there  were  some  strong  notes  of  assent 
from  the  crowd. 

"  Pretty  good  —  that  sizes  'em  up  great,"  said  one 
miner.  "  They  run  me  out  all  right  —  they  were  too 
many  for  me." 

"The  poetry  is  all  right,"  said  another. 

"  Ain't  it  good  ?  "  asked  the  pink-faced  man,  address 
ing  me.  "And  it's  dead  easy  for  him  to  write  such 
things.  He  just  dashes  'em  off  like  it  was  no  trouble 

[30] 


My  Burden  Grows  Heavier 

at  all.  He's  got  lots  of  other  pieces  that  he  wrote,  and 
he  knows  all  the  poets  by  heart  —  Shakespeare  and 
Tennyson  and  Bryant.  It's  a  great  thing  to  be  a  poet, 
I  think." 

"Yes,"  mused  the  one-eyed  man,  folding  his  manu 
script, 
« 

"  *  The  poet  in  a  golden  clime  was  born, 

With  golden  stars  above.' 

I  wrote  quite  a  number  of  war  poems  when  I  was  with 
Roosevelt  in  Cuba.  There's  where  I  lost  my  eye,"  he 
said,  turning  to  me.  "It  was  a  splinter  from  a  shell 
thrown  while  we  were  storming  up  San  Juan  Hill. 
The  opening  stanza  of  one  of  them  was  pretty  keen, 
I'm  telling  you.  It  began: 

*  When  the  sickening  soul  of  silence  swoons  in  sobbing 

seas  of  sound, 
And  the  greedy  guns  are  grumbling,  throwing  grapnel 

o'er  the  ground.' ' 

"  Isn't  that  word  '  shrapnel '  ?  "  I  suggested. 

"Well,  *  shrapnel'  or  'grapnel'  —  it's  all  the  same," 
said  the  poet.  "  'Grapnel,'  though,  is  more  alliterative. 
I'm  great  on  alliteration." 

[31] 


The  Lure  o9  Gold 

"  Yes,  I  see  you  are,"  said  I,  smiling,  and  just  a  little 
weary  of  the  one-eyed  man  and  his  poetry. 

The  pink-faced  man  was  quite  sociable.  He  did  not 
tell  me  his  name,  but  he  told  me  quite  a  bit  of  his  his 
tory,  and  particularly  that  which  related  to  his  adven 
tures  in  the  mines.  While  he  was  talking  the  one-eyed 
man  stood  by,  adding  a  word  now  and  again.  When 
ever  I  chanced  to  look  up  at  him,  which  was  not  often, 
as  the  creep  which  the  sight  of  his  closely  lidded  eye 
hole  gave  me  was  a  most  disagreeable  sensation,  I  saw 
that  he  was  gazing  intently  at  my  box.  That  glittering, 
penetrating  eye  of  his  seemed  sharp  enough,  in  its 
black  keenness,  to  bore  through  the  fir  wood  and  through 
the  tough  leather,  right  into  the  midst  of  the  dust.  I 
wondered,  as  I  glanced  at  him,  if  he  were  sifting  out 
and  assorting  in  his  mind  those  bright  little  pinhead 
grains  and  bullet-sized  nuggets  which  had  been  my 
particular  delight  as  they  lay  in  the  gold-pan  at  clean- 
ing-up  time.  I  remember  that  once  I  looked  up  sharply 
and  questioningly  at  him,  full  in  that  evil  eye  of  his, 
and  he  no  doubt  saw  irritation  and  suspicion  glancing 
from  my  own  eyes,  for  he  turned  suddenly  to  his  "  part 
ner,"  as  he  had  called  him,  and  spoke  hurriedly  of  a 
matter  quite  foreign  to  the  subject  of  treasure. 

[32] 


My  Burden  Grows  Heavier 

I  pulled  out  my  watch  for  the  fiftieth  time,  and  my 
impatience  was  vast  and  all  afire  when  I  saw  that  it 
was  eleven  o'clock  and  the  Captain  had  not  yet  hove  in 
sight.  The  passengers  rearranged  their  baggage, 
tightening  the  straps  and  cords,  and  walked  up  and 
down  the  sand,  and  the  crowd  of  beach  idlers  came 
and  went.  While  my  one-eyed  inquisitor  and  his 
friend  were  talking  together  and  still  standing  near  me, 
the  master  of  the  lighter  broke  through  the  crowd  and 
appeared  with  a  long,  stout  hempen  line  to  one  end  of 
which  was  attached  a  white  buoy  about  as  large  as  my 
head. 

"Hitch  this  to  yer  box,  son,"  he  said,  in  a  milder 
tone  than  I  had  yet  heard  him  use,  and  with  a  friendly 
gleam  in  his  eye  which  showed  that  he  was  not  a  bad 
fellow  after  all. 

"That's  a  good  idea,"  remarked  the  poet,  before  I 
had  time  to  say  a  word. 

"Nobody  spoke  to  you,"  gruffed  the  lighterman. 

"  What's  it  for  ?  "  I  asked,  referring  to  the  buoy. 

"To  mark  where  yer  box  falls  overboard." 

"Overboard?" 

"Yes,  I  mean  if  she  should  happen  to  go  splash  off 
the  boat,"  the  lighterman  explained.  "Better  let  me 

[33] 


The  Lure  o9  Gold 

hitch  her  up.  I  know  how  better'n  you.  We  don't 
generally  tie  'em  on  till  the  stuff  's  aboard;  but  the 
Capt'n's  late  and  when  he  comes  there'll  be  lots  o* 
lively  jumpin'  'round,  an'  I  might  fergit  or  somethin'. 
You  throw  a  hitch  like  that  —  see  —  an'  then  over 
this  way  —  twicet  aroun'  to  make  sure." 

He  hitched  and  wound  the  rope  about  the  box,  one 
end  of  which  he  lifted  with  a  grunt,  for  the  compact 
little  mass  hugged  the  sand  as  if  it  were  the  top  of  a 
sunken  post. 

"She  is  heavy,  isn't  she?"  said  the  lighterman,  as 
he  tugged  and  tilted,  with  what  seemed  to  me  a  growing 
respect  for  the  treasure  he  had  before  referred  to  so 
disparagingly.  After  tying  the  last  of  a  complex  and 
seaman-like  system  of  knots,  he  said :  "  Guess  we  bet 
ter  git  her  aboard,  after  all.  It's  ag'in  orders,  but  I'll 
stand  fer  it.  Yeh've  paid  yer  passage,  ain't  yeh? 
Well,  then,  I  guess  it  will  be  all  right.  Bill ! "  he  called, 
"Bill!" 

A  great,  rough,  sailor-looking  fellow,  whose  hands 
were  freely  tattooed  in  blue  and  red  and  whose  eyes 
wore  a  sleepy  look,  came  from  the  lighter,  and  the  two 
of  them  lifted  the  box  and  carried  it  aboard.  I  fol 
lowed,  nodding  to  the  one-eyed  poet  and  his  friend  in 

[34] 


My  Burden  Grows  Heavier 

exchange  for  over-polite  bows  and  smiles  from  them, 
and  walked  up  the  plank  to  the  deck  of  the  lighter  with 
a  feeling  of  relief  that  was  quite  restful  after  the  strain 
of  waiting  ashore. 

"  Look  here,  young  feller,"  said  the  lighterman  in  a 
deep-breathed,  throaty  undertone  as  I  dropped  my 
rifle  butt  on  the  box  where  it  lay  amidships  of  the  flat- 
boat  and  stretched  one  arm  comfortably.  "Do  you 
know  why  I  went  out  with  that  there  line,  an'  why  I 
brought  yer  box  aboard?  It's  on  account  o'  them 
chaps  you  was  talking  with.  They  ain't  no  good.  That 
one-eyed  feller  is  Pete  Slattery,  that  used  to  deal  faro 
at  the  Monte  Cristo  saloon  till  they  run  him  out  fer 
false  play;  an'  his  side  partner  is  a  crook,  I  know, 
though  I  ain't  seen  much  o'  him.  They  ain't  no  good. 
I  saw  they  was  a-takin'  too  much  interest  in  yer  box, 
so  I  fetched  it  aboard  here,  out  o'  their  way.  Don't 
have  no  truck  with  ary  one  o'  'em.  They  ain't  no 
good." 

"  But  he  was  in  the  Cuban  War,"  said  I,  "  and  lost 
his  eye  there,  so  he  says." 

"That  there  eye  was  lost  in  a  gamblin'  row  over  in 
Juneau  —  that's  where  it  was  lost,"  said  the  lighterman. 
"Don't  have  no  truck  with  such  trash,  my  boy." 

[35] 


The  Lure  o'  Gold 

I  thanked  my  new  friend  heartily  and  forgot  all  his 
former  insolence,  which  I  now  set  down  to  his  natur 
ally  uncouth  ways.  He  evidently  had  no  real  intention 
of  injuring  anyone. 

Looking  out  over  the  blue  waves  to  the  Flying  Mist, 
which  lay  a  mile  to  seaward,  and  noting  how  the  masses 
of  water  rose  and  tumbled,  I  could  appreciate  the  ad 
vantage  of  the  line-and-buoy  device.  The  deck  of  the 
lighter  being  perfectly  flat  and  smooth,  it  would  be  a 
simple  matter  for  Neptune  to  rock  the  craft  heavily 
and  get  my  gold. 

"Once,"  said  the  lighterman,  "we  lost  a  box  that 
had  sixty  thousand  in  it,  going  off  to  the  Caroline 
Stevens.  She  just  slid  right  off  the  boat  and  down  to 
the  bottom  an'  nobody  never  seen  her  ag'in.  Ever 
since  then  we've  hitched  buoys  to  'em.  It's  a  good 
plan  if  yeh  don't  want  the  sharks  to  be  a-buyin'  fancy 
store  clo'es  with  yer  gold." 

"  But  the  owners  of  the  lost  dust,"  I  asked,  "  didn't 
they  recover  anything  from  you  ?  " 

"  Recover  ?  I  guess  you  don't  think  we  take  any 
thing  like  that,  here  in  this  wild  place,  except  at  owner's 
risk.  That's  understood.  When  a  reg'lar  shippin' 
company  gits  in  here  it  will  be  different,  but  I'd  like  to 

[36] 


My  Burden  Grows  Heavier 

know  who's  a-goin'  to  hold  us  responsible,  as  things 
stand,  an'  what  court  they're  a-goin'  to  git  jedgment 
in  ?  It  'ud  be  like  tryin'  to  collect  back  dues  from  them 
gulls  a-flyin'  over  there.  Of  course,  you  could  put  in 
yer  claim,"  he  said,  grinning,  "jest  as  them  fellers  did; 
but  it's  owner's  risk  here,  every  time,  an'  you'd  have  to 
take  it  out  in  claimin',  I  guess  —  eh,  Bill  ?  " 

Bill  nodded  sleepily  and  grinned  prodigiously. 

"I  guess  that's  what,"  said  he,  with  as  much  con 
viction  as  he  seemed  capable  of  expressing. 

I  lapsed  into  a  thoughtful  mood.  The  risks  attend 
ing  the  transfer  of  gold  to  vessels  in  the  stream  seemed 
out  of  all  proportion  to  the  toil  and  trouble  involved  in 
the  process  of  taking  it  out  of  the  mine.  I  had  heard 
it  said  that  the  gold  dust  in  the  beach  sand  had  all  been 
given  up  by  the  sea,  and  now  that  the  sea  seemed  so 
eager  to  get  back  its  treasure,  a  miner  was  lucky  if  he 
landed  any  of  it  safely  in  his  home  port. 

"  The  Captain,"  I  asked,  "  is  he  ever  going  to  come  ?  " 
For  I  was  now  more  impatient  than  before  I  had  heard 
the  story  of  the  loss  of  the  gold.  I  wanted  to  see  my 
box  safe  aboard  the  Flying  Mist  and  out  of  the  reach 
of  the  covetous  landsmen,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the 
shoalwater  sharks  on  the  other. 

[37] 


The  Lure  o'  Gold 

"Oh,  he'll  be  along,"  said  the  lighterman,  rescuing 
his  tobacco  plug  from  the  hands  of  Bill  after  that  indi 
vidual  had  made  a  desperate  attack  upon  it  with  his 
teeth.  "  It's  any  time  to-day,  you  know,  and  the  tug 
boat  won't  come  along  until  I  set  the  signal." 

"Any  time  to-day!"  I  exclaimed  in  dismay,  "and 
we  were  to  start  at  ten." 

"Don't  fret,  sonny.  He'll  be  here  before  dark. 
He'll  want  the  tide,  yeh  know." 

"That's  right,"  said  Bill. 

"There's  big  attractions  up  town,"  said  the  lighter 
man. 

"That's  right,"  said  Bill. 

"Monte,  roulette,  wheel-of -fortune,  and  plenty  of 
gin." 

"That's  right,"  said  Bill.     "That's  right." 

I  groaned  and  looked  about  with  large  unrest  and 
irritation. 


[38] 


IV 


IN  WHICH  I  AM  RELIEVED  OF  MY  BURDEN 

r 

I  TURNED  toward  the  beach.  The  crowd  there  had 
thinned  perceptibly  and  had  lost  the  one-eyed  man  and 
the  man  in  the  dark-brown  sweater.  Some  of  the  pas 
sengers  had  wrapped  themselves  in  great-coats  or  blan 
kets  and  were  lying  in  the  sand,  fast  asleep.  Others 
sprawled  or  sat  about,  talking  and  reading,  and  a  few 
were  strolling  up  and  down  the  shingle,  idly,  and,  as  I 
regarded  it,  all  too  good-naturedly,  seeing  they  were 
so  belated  by  the  stupid  master  mariner,  who,  I  began 
to  suspect,  cared  little  for  his  craft  or  the  fate  of  the 
people  who  were  to  risk  their  lives  and  treasure  in  her. 
I  heard  a  cheery  voice  among  the  crowd  —  Doctor 
Quaritch's  beyond  question.  He  came  down  to  the 
edge  of  the  wet  sand,  while  I  walked  to  the  after  end 
of  the  lighter.  By  his  side  was  a  grinning  little  Japan 
ese,  who  was  carrying  the  black  bag. 

"Hullo,  John!"  called  out  the  Doctor.  "I  heard 
your  Flying  Mist  hadn't  sailed  yet,  so  I  dropped  down 

[39] 


The  Lure  o9  Gold 

on  my  way  to  the  Sand  Spit,  where  some  friends  of 
mine  are  camping.  Guess  you  struck  a  pretty  slow 
boat." 

"  She's  slow  at  starting,  anyway,"  I  confessed.  "  But 
you  can  see  her  funnel  now,  Doctor,"  I  added,  smiling, 
"  and  you  can  make  out  for  yourself  what  it's  like." 

The  Doctor  took  a  pair  of  pince  nez  glasses  from  his 
waistcoat  pocket,  and,  adjusting  them,  stared  hard 
across  the  water. 

"Nothing  of  the  sort,"  said  he,  slowly.  "There 
ins't  any  such  rig  as  that  afloat.  Nothing  of  the  — 
well,  bless  my  soul ! " 

A  little  curl  of  dark  smoke  had  lifted  from  the  top  of 
the  mainmast,  which  now  showed  plainly  in  the  clear 
afternoon  sunlight  as  both  mainmast  and  funnel. 

"  Dashed  if  that  doesn't  beat  me ! "  And  he  gave  a 
roaring  laugh,  his  round  stomach  shaking.  He  stood 
for  a  few  minutes  staring  at  the  vessel,  and  then,  saying 
good-bye  to  me  and  wishing  me  a  lucky  voyage,  he 
moved  on  up  the  sands,  the  Jap  following  him,  and  both 
of  them  pausing  now  and  again  while  the  Doctor 
turned  his  eyes  upon  the  Flying  Mist  as  upon  the  rarest 
sight  he  had  ever  witnessed. 

I  went  back  and  sat  down  upon  my  box,  glad  of  the 
[40] 


/  am  Relieved  of  my  Burden 

break  which  Doctor  Quaritch's  coming  had  made  in  the 
monotony  of  waiting. 

The  breeze  over  the  blue  Bering  cut  in  harder  than 
ever.  I  had  been  wearing  mukluks,  but  had  exchanged 
that  warm  foot-covering  for  a  pair  of  new  calfskin 
shoes,  so  that,  to  add  to  my  other  discomforts,  my  feet 
were  cold.  From  time  to  time  I  had  to  rise  and  stamp 
about  the  little  deck.  I  had  kept  a  sharp  eye  open  for 
the  coming  of  the  Captain,  looking  across  the  beach  to 
where  the  white  tent-cloths  filled  and  fluttered  in  the 
stout  sea  breeze.  I  was  weary  of  the  sight  of  those 
dirty-white  tents  and  of  the  flimsy  shanties  of  the  miners 
and  of  the  litter  and  filth  all  about  them.  I  yearned  to 
be  off  for  home.  If  I  could  safely  have  been  set  down 
among  the  tall,  smoke-browned  brick  buildings  of 
Market  street  at  that  moment  I  should  willingly  have 
given  one  of  those  eight  buckskin  bags  of  gold  dust. 
But  there  I  was,  still  waiting.  The  low,  dull  Arctic 
sun  sank  into  the  icy  Bering,  and  the  sharper  chill  of 
night  came  to  further  beset  my  powers  of  endurance. 
At  last  I  heard  one  of  the  passengers  shout  derisively : 

"  Here  comes  Captain  Bright-and-Early,  and  what  a 
load  he's  got  aboard ! " 

A  tall  hulking  figure,  moving  slowly  and  uncertainly 
[41] 


The  Lure  o'  Gold 

along  the  sands,  had  appeared  around  the  corner  of  the 
nearest  shanty,  accompanied  by  four  or  five  others,  and 
as  they  drew  near  I  recognized  my  one-eyed  friend, 
whom  the  lighterman  had  told  me  was  Pete  Slattery, 
and  the  little  pink-faced  man  who  wore  the  dark-brown 
sweater.  Both  of  these  worthy  gentlemen  were  very 
loose-motioned  and  were  muttering  brokenly. 

I  glared  at  the  late-coming  skipper  sullenly,  my  pa 
tience  worn  to  the  thinnest  possible  edge.  It  seemed 
to  me  particularly  odious  and  insolent  of  him  that  after 
all  our  waiting  he  should  appear  in  such  an  offensive 
state. 

"  Get  aboard  everybody ! "  he  shouted,  as  he  reeled 
up  the  plank,  assisted  by  Bill  and  the  lighterman. 
"  Signal  for  your  tug,  Sandy,"  he  commanded.  "  What's 
that  you  say  ?  Tide  turning  ?  Of  course  it  is.  What's 
the  odds  ?  We  can  steam  out  all  right  —  all  right ! " 

I  had  observed  that  Slattery  and  his  friend  had  been 
keeping  close  to  the  Captain  and  that  they  seemed  to 
be  on  excellent  terms  with  him.  I  wondered  if  they 
were  not  partly  responsible  for  his  condition.  During 
the  embarkation  of  the  passengers  and  their  effects  the 
two  partners  were  laughing  and  joking  loosely  with  the 
Captain,  and  their  mirth  was  all  the  more  hateful  to 

[42] 


I  am  Relieved  of  my  Burden 

me  when  they  pressed  upon  him  a  long,  black  bottle 
which,  I  was  glad  to  see,  he  persistently  refused,  though 
with  the  utmost  good  nature. 

"Sorry,  gents,"  I  heard  him  say,  "but  I  know  when 
I'm  down  to  my  Plimsoll  line.  It's  good  stuff,  I  know, 
but  I've  got  to  get  a  steamer  out  of  this  crazy  port, 
which  is  no  port  at  all,  and  bucking  a  turning  tide  at 
that.  So  I'll  have  to  beg  off,  though  I'm  glad  to  have 
had  your  jolly  company,  which  I'll  always  remember 
—  always  remember." 

When  the  man  Slattery  came  aboard  the  lighter  the 
sleepy  Bill  seemed  to  be  more  wakeful.  I  saw  Bill 
having  a  few  words  with  the  poet  behind  the  tall  pile  of 
baggage.  To  this  interview  I  paid  but  little  attention 
at  the  time,  and  it  could  have  lasted  but  a  few  min 
utes,  for  the  master  of  the  flatboat,  who  had  vainly  been 
signaling  for  his  tow,  suddenly  came  around  the  bag 
gage  pile  and  told  his  mate  to  run  up  the  beach  and  see 
if  he  couldn't  raise  her.  Bill  went  away  and  soon  came 
back,  and  I  saw  the  lights  of  the  tug  gleam  over  the 
water,  through  the  gathering  murk.  At  last  I  was  to 
be  relieved  of  the  long  ordeal  of  waiting. 

The  tug's  line  was  made  fast,  and  I  heard  her  wheeze 
violently.  Glancing  about  among  the  passengers,  I 

T431 


The  Lure  o9  Gold 

did  not  see  the  one-eyed  poet  or  his  companion.  It 
could  not  be,  I  thought,  that  they  had  of  a  sudden  given 
up  the  idea  of  becoming  passengers  on  the  Flying  Mist. 
As  my  eye  ranged  about  in  search  of  them,  Bill  inter 
posed  his  burly  form  between  me  and  the  baggage  pile. 

"  I'll  have  to  move  you  and  your  box  a  little  further 
over,"  he  said,  with  more  politeness  than  I  had  deemed 
him  capable  of  exhibiting.  "You're  in  the  runway 
here." 

I  made  no  protest,  but  I  observed  that  in  shoving  my 
box  a  "  little  further  over "  he  placed  it  in  a  position 
which  I  deemed  dangerously  near  the  edge  of  the  lighter. 

"Oh,  you  needn't  worry  about  that,"  said  he,  in 
tones  meant  to  be  reassuring,  for  I  had  grasped  the  box 
to  prevent  his  moving  it  any  farther.  "It  can't  go 
overboard.  It  sticks  to  the  deck  too  close  for  that." 

"But  there's  no  railing,"  I  insisted,  "and  it  might 
slide  off.  The  sixty  thousand  dollars  went  over  the 
side,  and  — 

"  Oh,  that's  a  fairy  tale,"  sneered  Bill.  "  He  tried 
to  scare  yeh.  Didn't  yeh  see  him  tip  me  the  wink  ?  " 

Seeing  that  I  could  make  no  headway  with  the  ob 
durate  Bill,  I  looked  about  for  his  master,  to  whom  I 
thought  to  appeal;  but  the  lighterman  was  away  for- 

[44] 


I  am  Relieved  of  my  Burden 

ward,  while  I  was  well  aft,  and  I  did  not  dare  to  leave 
my  gold  to  go  and  speak  to  him.  The  sea  was  not  rough, 
there  being  only  a  light  wind  now  and  a  few  surges. 
There  was  really  not  much  cause  for  apprehension  re 
garding  the  safety  of  the  treasure.  So  I  stood  leaning 
against  the  baggage ,  feeling  the  grateful  motion  of  the 
slow-going  craft  as  she  was  towed  nearer  and  nearer 
the  Flying  Mist. 

Looking  back  at  the  lights  of  Nome,  as  they  twinkled 
along  the  beach,  it  did  not  seem  such  a  desolate  place 
as  it  had  during  those  waiting  hours.  After  all,  the 
camp  had  treated  me  well  and  had  given  me  a  fortune. 
I  could  not  help  having  a  little  friendly  feeling  for  it. 

Not  far  astern  I  could  hear  the  "  put-put "  of  a  gaso 
line  launch,  which  seemed  to  be  following  us.  I  won 
dered  for  a  moment  if  it  could  contain  belated  passen 
gers  for  the  Flying  Mist;  but  this,  I  thought,  could 
hardly  be  the  case,  considering  the  tardy  start  which  we 
were  making.  What  seemed  rather  strange  to  me  was 
the  fact  that  the  launch  showed  no  lights.  Still,  as  we 
were  in  waters  where  port  regulations  were  vague  and 
loosely  applied,  it  did  not  matter  much. 

As  we  were  towed  a  little  farther  out  we  were  swept 
by  a  sudden  blast  of  wind.  The  lighter  careened 

[45] 


The  Lure  o9  Gold 

quickly,  my  side  of  the  craft  rising  high.  At  the  same 
time  there  was  a  shock  as  of  the  striking  of  a  wave. 

"  That  was  a  hard  one ! "  I  heard  a  passenger  call  out. 
"  How  I  love  one  of  these  crazy  flatboats ! " 

"Likely  to  turn  turtle  any  minute,"  said  another  pas 
senger,  with  a  gasp. 

As  the  little  craft  heeled  over  on  my  side,  I  heard  a 
commotion  forward,  where  some  of  the  topmost  bag 
gage  of  the  hastily  thrown  together  pile  had  fallen  on 
the  deck.  I  turned  to  look  ahead  in  the  darkness,  and 
heard  the  lighterman  swearing  and  the  Captain  bawling 
out  orders.  At  that  moment  I  heard  a  "  chug  "  in  the 
water,  and,  turning  quickly,  my  eye  did  not  catch  the 
precious  square  object  it  had  held  in  view  all  day  long. 
The  legs  of  the  cumbersome  Bill  were,  I  thought,  ob 
scuring  my  sight  of  it;  but  as  they  were  quickly  with 
drawn,  the  man  starting  forward  with  a  "What's  the 
matter,  there  ?  "  I  saw  at  a  glance  that  my  treasure  was 
gone.  The  "  chug  "  I  had  heard  was  made  by  the  fall 
ing  of  the  heavy  box  into  the  water. 

"My  gold  is  overboard!"  I  shouted  to  Captain 
Transome.  "  Stop  her  —  please  stop  her ! " 

The  Captain  stood  within  ten  feet  of  me  and  his  face 
was  in  the  light  of  a  lantern  that  was  sitting  on  the  bag- 

[46] 


/  am  Relieved  of  my  Burden 

gage  pile.  I  saw  him  blink  unconcernedly  and  then 
stare  stupidly  as  I  called  out  again: 

"  Captain,  Captain,  my  gold  is  overboard ! " 

He  swore  a  blood-curdling  oath  and  called  the  lighter 
man. 

"What  about  this?"  he  asked.  "Man  says  he  has 
lost  his  gold  overboard."  His  speech  was  thick  and 
almost  incoherent,  while  his  tone  was  full  of  indifference. 
But  the  lighterman  was  all  sympathy  in  an  instant. 

"Bill,"  he  shouted,  "signal  for  a  stop!" 

In  those  first  breath-breaking  moments  of  my  ter 
rible  loss  it  seemed  to  me  that  it  took  the  villainous 
Bill  half  an  hour  to  get  his  lantern  and  make  the  signal ; 
and  when  he  did  so  there  was  no  response  from  the  tug. 

I  heard  the  quick  "put-put!"  of  the  launch  and 
instinctively  I  felt  that  the  presence  of  that  night- 
cruising  craft  was  in  some  way  connected  with  the  loss 
of  my  treasure.  I  turned  quickly  to  the  lighterman. 

"Your  man  Bill,"  I  cried,  "pushed  my  box  over 
board,  and  those  fellows  who  are  following  us  in  the 
launch  will  try  to  get  it.  I'm  going  to  take  the  small 
boat  towing  behind  there  and  see  that  they  don't  rob 
me.  Will  you  come  and  help  me  ?  " 

"I  can't,"  he  said.  "I  can't  leave  till  she  stops. 
[47] 


The  Lure  o'  Gold 

And  don't  you  take  that  boat.  The  lighter  will  stop 
in  a  minute,  as  soon  as  they  git  our  signal." 

"Yes,  and  by  that  time  my  gold  will  be  stolen. 
They'll  see  the  buoy,  pull  up  the  line  and  make  away 
with  the  box." 

I  ran  aft,  in  a  fever  of  excitement,  my  rifle  in  my 
hand,  and  hauled  in  the  rope  of  the  small  boat  hurriedly. 

"Leave  that"  boat  alone!"  yelled  the  lighterman, 
running  after  me.  But  I  sprang  in  over  the  bow,  un 
tied  the  line  and  fell  astern  rapidly. 

The  lighterman  yowled  after  me  in  the  darkness, 
but  I  paid  no  heed  to  his  calls.  Seizing  the  oars,  I 
rowed  like  mad  toward  the  spot  where  I  could  hear 
the  gasoline  engine  "  putting  "  and  purring.  I  rightly 
divined  that  this  would  be  the  place  where  the  watchful 
eyes  of  the  scoundrels  who  had  been  following  us  would 
have  spied  the  white  buoy  floating  on  the  surface  of  the 
dark  water.  My  little  boat  was  tossed  about  upon  the 
waves,  but  I  pulled  steadily.  I  had  been  nursing  my 
muscles  with  the  mining  shovel  and  they  were  hard  as 
wood ;  and,  being  handy  with  the  oars,  I  made  the  little 
craft  fly  toward  the  launch.  As  she  rose  on  one  of  the 
waves,  I  saw  a  light  flash  out  within  two  hundred  feet 
of  me.  There  was  the  launch  and  in  her  were  two  men 

[48] 


/  am  Relieved  of  my  Burden 

hauling  on  a  line  over  the  side.  I  yelled  at  them  lustily, 
but  they  paid  no  heed.  Now  they  pulled  at  something 
heavy  —  my  box  of  a  certainty  —  and  lifted  it  into  their 
boat. 

Immediately  I  heard  the  sound  of  the  engine  "put 
ting  "  and  whirring,  and  as  my  boat  fell  into  the  scoop 
of  the  dark  sea,  I  could  do  nothing  but  pull  at  the  oars 
and  shout. 

When  my  craft  lifted  again  and  I  could  see  the  light 
of  the  launch,  I  raised  my  rifle  and  sent  a  shot  singing 
over  it,  and  then  another  and  another. 

"Bang!  bang!  bang!"  The  sounds,  in  that  great 
expanse  of  sea,  seemed  but  toyish  and  trivial  in  their 
volume,  and  as  for  the  effect  upon  the  men  in  the  launch 
the  firing  counted  for  naught. 

The  light  went  out  suddenly,  and  as  I  could  see 
nothing  of  the  men  in  the  boat  nor  even  the  outline 
of  the  craft,  there  was  little  use  of  further  shooting. 
Indeed,  I  was  sorry  I  had  shot  or  shouted,  for  I  might 
have  pulled  in  nearer  before  the  light  was  extinguished, 
when,  at  closer  range  and  being  so  well  armed,  I  might 
have  commanded  the  situation.  Now  there  was  noth 
ing  left  but  aimless  and  futile  rowing  in  the  direction 
which  I  blindly  judged  the  launch  had  taken.  As  for 
[49] 


The  Lure  o'  Gold 

the  lighter,  she  seemed  to  have  left  me  to  my  fate.  Far 
over  the  water  I  could  see  her  lights  and  those  of  the 
tug  proceeding  out  to  sea;  but  my  interest  was  no  longer 
in  any  way  connected  with  her  or  with  her  men,  though 
I  own  I  should  have  liked  to  see  the  ruffianly  Bill  for  a 
brief  moment  and  square  accounts  with  him  in  some 
way.  All  that  I  strained  forward  to  now  was  to  detect 
and  confront  the  poetical  Pete  Slattery  and  his  pink- 
faced  friend. 


[50] 


V 


BACK  TO  THE  GOLDEN  NORTH 


I  PULLED  ashore  alongside  a  big  lumber  lighter 
which  made  a  breakwater  for  me,  else  I  might  have  had 
great  difficulty  in  landing.  As  it  was,  I  had  to  wade  in 
ice-cold  water  over  my  knees.  So,  in  drenched  disgust 
and  with  my  thoughts  melting  dizzily  into  each  other, 
I  hastened  to  the  board  shanty  in  which  dwelt  Gus 
Clarke,  the  chairman  of  the  Committee  of  Safety, 
which  was  at  that  time  all  the  rough  camp  afforded  in 
the  way  of  public  officers  for  the  detection  and  punish 
ment  of  crime,  unless  one  counted  the  detachment  of 
soldiers  who  idled  about  the  place. 

Gus  Clarke's  cabin  was  dark  and  he  was  sound 
asleep  when  I  knocked  harshly  and  with  intense  anxi 
ety,  arousing  him  and  all  his  dogs,  which  made  a  tre 
mendous  fuss  just  inside  the  door.  Soon  I  saw  a  light 
through  the  little  window  and  heard  the  voice  of  Clarke, 
whom  I  knew  very  well,  cursing  and  quieting  the  dogs. 
But  the  brutes  set  up  such  another  hubbub  when  the 

[51] 


The  Lure  o9  Gold 

door  was  opened  that  he  could  not  make  out  what  I 
had  come  to  tell  him.  At  last,  after  kicking  the  noisy 
animals  all  out  of  doors,  he  heard  my  story,  told  with  a 
quivering  excitement  akin  to  despair,  and  was  instantly 
sympathetic,  though  not  so  resourceful  as  I  had 
hoped. 

"  It's  too  bad  —  too  bad,  John,"  said  he,  stroking  his 
shaggy  beard.  "Forty  thousand  dollars  in  dust! 
That's  a  big  loss.  They  worked  it  slick,  didn't  they  ? 
Let's  see.  What  can  be  done  ?  You  say  you  think  it 
was  Pete  Slattery,  but  you  don't  know.  Pete's  a  neat 
hand,  and  not  above  such  a  game  as  that.  He  has  the 
mug  for  it,  and  was  crooked  at  cards,  they  say,  though 
I  ain't  heard  of  his  liftin'  any  dust  before." 

"The  little,  round  man  with  the  pink  face  and  the 
red  nose  —  the  man  who  wore  the  dark-brown  sweater," 
I  suggested,  my  words  running  together  in  my  anxious 
haste  to  offer  something  on  which  instant  action  might 
be  taken.  "  Do  you  know  who  he  is  ?  " 

Gus  Clarke,  assuming  an  official  air,  pulled  his  beard 
and  thought,  while  my  wet  feet  nervously  tapped  the 
floor. 

"No,"  he  said,  after  a  few  minutes,  "I  don't  know 
as  I  ever  seen  him.  Must  be  a  chechako." 

[52] 


DR.  QUARITCH 


Back  to  the  Golden  North 

By  "chechako,"  he  meant  new-comer.  But  this 
speculation,  as  well  as  those  which  he  further  offered, 
was  of  little  assistance  to  me  in  my  burning  impatience 
to  get  something  done  toward  detecting  the  robbers  and 
regaining  my  lost  treasure. 

"I  think  you'd  better  report  all  this  to  Captain 
Walker  in  the  morning,"  said  Gus  Clarke,  "though  it 
ain't  likely  the  soldiers  can  do  much  for  you.  You 
see,  we  are  working  this  Safety  Committee  on  the  q.  t. 
for  the  present  and  not  many  people  know  about  it. 
We've  got  some  pretty  sharp  men  in  it,  and  they  know  a 
thing  or  two.  My  opinion  of  the  soldiers  guarding  this 
here  camp  is  that  they're  a  lot  of  doughheads.  Still, 
they  might  help  you  some.  But  you  can't  do  nothing 
to-night,  John  —  not  a  thing.  Better  get  back  to  the 
Golden  North  and  get  your  feet  dried  out  and  go  to  bed. 
In  the  morning  I'll  call  a  meeting  of  the  Committee 
and  see  what  can  be  done." 

"  But  by  morning  they'll  have  my  gold  packed  clear 
over  to  Topkok,  and  I'll  never  see  it  again,"  said  I, 
bitterly,  fearing  in  my  drooping  heart  that  I  had  seen 
the  last  of  the  eight  buckskin  sacks  with  the  "  J.  M." 
stamped  upon  them.  Perhaps  by  this  time  the  gold 
was  being  transferred  to  other  receptacles,  all  marks  of 

[53] 


The  Lure  o'  Gold 

its  identity  destroyed,  and  it  was  being  "packed"  on 
dog-back  to  some  far-away  place. 

"Oh,  no,"  said  the  chairman  of  the  Committee  of 
Safety  very  sagely,  "the  only  way  they  can  get  out  of 
Nome  City  with  that  gold  is  to  take  it  aboard  some  ves 
sel,  and  they  won't  try  to  do  that  to-night." 

"  Why,  they  might  have  gone  out  to  the  Flying  Mist. 
They  were  friendly  with  the  Captain.  They  may  have 
been  in  league  with  him." 

"  Onlikely,  my  boy,  very  onlikely,"  said  the  judicial 
Gus  Clarke.  "  I  know  Captain  Transome  and  he's 
square  as  that  table,  though  he  does  gin  up  a  little  too 
heavy  once  in  a  while.  It  was  them  and  their  liquor 
that  kept  him  back  until  after  dark,  so  they  could  have 
the  box  throwed  overboard;  but  they  wouldn't  try  any 
game  of  runnin'  off  with  it  on  his  schooner.  He 
wouldn't  stand  for  it  and  they  know  it.  Your  gold  is 
here  in  the  camp  somewhere,  and  I'll  hunt  it  up  for 
you  to-morrow  if  it's  to  be  found,  and  land  that  chap 
Slattery  and  his  pal  in  the  calaboose  —  that  is,  if  it's 
them  that  done  it,  and  you  seem  pretty  positive  it  was." 

"  And  you'll  get  started  bright  and  early  ?  "  I  insisted, 
loath  to  give  up  all  opportunity  of  a  night  search  for 
the  gold,  and  yet  convinced  after  a  fashion  that  Gus 

[54] 


Back  to  the  Golden  North 

Clarke  would  do  his  best  to  aid  me  as  soon  as  I  should 
come  around  in  the  morning. 

"Sure,"  promised  he. 

"And  set  the  other  members  of  the  Committee  at 
work  hunting  it  up  ?  " 

"Sure." 

I  bade  him  "  good-night  "  very  kindly  and  went  away. 
It  was  late,  but  I  could  not  yet  go  back  to  the  hotel.  I 
was  too  full  of  the  dreadful  sense  of  my  loss.  I  was 
hoping,  also,  that  a  lucky  chance  might  aid  me  to 
stumble  upon  the  robbers  that  very  night.  As  I  strode 
feverishly  along  the  crazy,  creaking  sidewalks  of  the 
stinking  streets  of  the  town,  past  open  gambling  dens, 
aflame  with  lights,  past  dance-halls  where  gaily  dressed 
girls  smiled  and  beckoned  at  me,  I  peered  into  this  and 
that  place  of  sin,  in  the  vague  hope  of  catching  sight  of 
Slattery  or  his  companion,  and  at  each  failure  in  the 
search  my  depression  of  spirits  was  something  ex 
tremely  difficult  for  a  young  and  generally  buoyant 
nature  like  mine  to  bear. 

How  could  I  go  home  empty-handed  and  tell  my 
father  that  I  had  lost  the  gold  ?  How  could  I  own  to 
him  that  the  fortune  for  which  he  had  risked  so  much 
and  had  come  so  near  to  his  death  to  lay  hold  upon, 

[55] 


The  Lure  o  Gold 

had  utterly  vanished  almost  before  my  sight,  while  I 
was  powerless  to  prevent  its  loss  ?  Blind,  unreasoning 
self-accusation  held  me  to  the  rack  in  that  first  hour  of 
wandering.  Had  I  been  a  little  more  vigilant,  the  fel 
low  Bill  might  not  have  had  his  opportunity  to  push 
the  box  overboard.  Why  had  I  let  him  shove  it  so  near 
to  the  edge  of  the  lighter  in  the  first  place  ?  It  was  true, 
as  Gus  Clarke  had  seen  from  my  recital,  that  the  man 
Slattery  and  his  companion  had  kept  the  Captain 
ashore  in  some  drinking  resort  that  they  might  delay 
him  and  thus  take  advantage  of  the  darkness.  Why 
had  I  not  suspected  something  ?  Why  had  I  not  been 
more  alive  to  the  situation  and  the  peril  ?  When  I  had 
noted  that  they  did  not  stay  aboard  the  lighter  it  had 
been  childish  of  me  not  to  have  suspected  the  very  plot 
that  had  been  carried  out.  How  easily,  and  neatly, 
and  completely  they  had  victimized  me ! 

And  then  a  wave  of  self-pity  swept  over  me.  How 
much  more  wisely  would  any  man  have  acted  under 
the  circumstances  ?  Was  not  the  whole  affair  most 
unusual  ?  Who  had  ever  heard  of  such  a  robbery  — 
of  gold  being  thrown  deliberately  into  the  sea  to  be 
fished  up  again  by  the  thieves  ?  And  the  man  Bill — who 
could  reasonably  have  suspected  him  in  the  part  he  was 

[56] 


Back  to  the  Golden  North 

playing  ?  He  was  one  of  the  crew  of  the  lighter — the  whole 
crew,  so  far  as  I  could  see — and  the  trusted  servant  and 
agent  of  the  public.  Who  could  have  suspected  him  ? 

But  of  what  avail  would  be  all  the  explanations  I 
might  make  to  my  father  as  to  the  loss  of  the  gold? 
He  was,  as  I  have  said  before,  exceedingly  strict  in  his 
dealings  with  others.  I  would  rather  have  been  re 
sponsible  to  any  other  man  alive.  Explanations! 
Why,  I  had  often  heard  him  say  that  he  never  dealt  in 
explanations  himself,  and  wanted  no  man  to  explain 
or  apologize  to  him. 

And  to  such  a  man,  looking  at  him  for  a  moment 
wholly  aside  from  the  natural  compassion  and  affection 
that  I  must  feel  for  a  father  who  loved  me  in  spite  of 
all  my  faults  —  to  such  a  man  I  must  go  home  and  say, 
"The  gold  that  you  worked  for,  starved  for,  sickened 
and  almost  died  for,  is  lost ! " 

In  those  first  dazed  hours  I  did  not  think  of  my  own 
share  of  the  stolen  gold,  nor  of  my  wasted  labor.  I 
could  afford  to  lose  time  and  treasure.  I  was  young 
and  the  world  lay  all  before  me;  and  though  I  had 
built  mightily  upon  the  fortune  that  had  come  so  quickly 
I  could  work  and  regain  it.  But  to  the  good  folk  at 
home  the  blow  would  be  terrible 

[57] 


The  Lure  o  Gold 

Again  I  thought  of  the  infamous  Bill,  and  as  I  did  so 
it  seemed  to  me  that  by  going  down  to  the  lighter, 
which,  no  doubt,  had  returned  from  the  Flying  Mist,  I 
might  get  some  sight  of  the  rascal  and  possibly  capture 
him.  All  this  time  I  had  been  carrying  my  rifle,  though 
I  had  not  often  been  reminded  of  it,  as  it  was  a  light 
weapon.  Its  presence  on  my  shoulder  was  quite  com 
forting,  however,  as  I  strode  down  the  beach  to  the 
place  where  the  lighter  had  been  stranded  with  the 
other  shore-lying  craft.  But  when  I  found  the  flatboat 
in  the  darkness  there  was  no  sign  of  life  on  or  about  the 
square  little  hulk.  So  I  walked  back  toward  the  Gol 
den  North,  away  from  the  sound  of  the  melancholy 
surf,  the  voice  of  which  seemed  doubly  sad  to  me,  stag 
gering  as  I  was  under  this  heavy  stroke  of  misfortune. 

The  warmth  of  the  big  stove  in  the  tavern  and  the 
lingering  food  smells  that  haunted  the  little  dining- 
room,  which  was  also  sitting-room,  public  room  and 
office  all  in  one,  reminded  me  of  how  miserably  cold 
and  hungry  I  was,  for  I  had  eaten  nothing  since  morn 
ing  and  my  feet  were  still  wet  and  cold  from  wading  in 
the  surf. 

The  landlord,  who  was  still  out  of  bed,  although  it 
was  nearly  midnight,  was  greatly  surprised  when  he 

[58] 


Back  to  the  Golden  North 

saw  me.  I  refrained  from  telling  him  of  my  loss.  He 
would  hear  of  it  soon  enough.  I  merely  told  him  that 
I  had  not  taken  passage  in  the  Flying  Mist  after  all. 
The  good  man  fetched  me  some  cold  boiled  beef,  a 
loaf  of  bread  and  a  cup  of  hot  coffee,  which  I  attacked 
ravenously. 

"You  can  have  the  same  bed  you  had  last  night, 
John,"  said  he,  turning  to  attend  to  some  other  late 
comers.  "You  know  the  way  up.  Turn  in  whenever 
it  suits  you." 

I  was  now  dried,  warmed  and  well  fed,  and,  although 
not  a  bit  sleepy,  I  thought  it  best  to  retire  and  get  as 
much  rest  as  possible  for  the  day  of  hard  detective  work 
that  lay  before  me  in  the  morning.  So  up  the  rickety 
stairs  I  mounted  and  walked  to  the  door  of  the  little 
box  of  a  room  which  I  had  thought  never  to  see  again. 
My  turning  of  the  handle  brought  forth  a  lusty  "  Who's 
there?"  And  in  an  instant  I  knew  by  that  booming 
voice  that  Doctor  Quaritch  still  kept  the  incommo 
dious  lodging  we  had  shared  together  on  the  previous 
night.  I  stuck  my  head  inside  the  door  and  announced 
myself. 

"  Goodness  me ! "  was  the  Doctor's  greeting.  "  It's 
you  again,  is  it,  John  Morning?  Light  the  candle. 

[59] 


The  Lure  o9  Gold 

Then  you  didn't  get  away  after  all  ?  I'm  mighty  glad 
of  it.  Hated  to  see  you  set  sail  in  that  funnel-masted 
thing.  Now  you  can  go  down  to  San  Francisco  with 
me." 

I  struck  a  match  and  looked  about  for  the  candle, 
finding  it  on  a  chair  near  the  head  of  his  bed. 

"  But,  Doctor,"  said  I,  as  the  candle-wick  blazed  up 
and  I  took  the  hand  he  extended  to  me  from  under  the 
shoddy  blanket,  "I've  met  with  a  terrible  loss.  My 
gold  is  gone  —  stolen ! " 

"No!     How  in  tunket  did  it  happen?" 

"They  threw  it  overboard  and  then  fished  it  up  be 
fore  I  could  reach  them." 

I  sat  down  on  the  edge  of  my  bed  and  told  the  sorry 
tale  of  the  robbery. 

"Well,  well,"  said  the  Doctor,  at  the  close  of  my 
narration.  "That  beats  all.  That's  the  worst  I  ever 
heard.  But  there's  a  chance  yet  —  you  may  get  it, 
though  it's  doubtful  —  mighty  doubtful.  The  soldiers 
here  are  not  likely  to  be  first-class  detectives,  and  your 
Safety  Committee  can  hardly  hope  to  cope  with  such 
shrewd  criminals." 

"I'm  afraid  they're  not  much  good,"  I  owned. 

"You'd  know  that  one-eyed  chap  again,  of  course, 
[60] 


Back  to  the  Golden  North 

if  you  saw  him,  which  you  may  never  have  the  chance 
to  do,  and  the  other  rascal." 

"Oh,  I'd  know  him,  too,  and  Bill,  though  Bill  was 
only  a  tool." 

"Yes;  they  must  have  hired  him  to  push  the  box 
overboard.  Well,  now,  my  boy,  go  to  bed  and  get  to 
sleep.  You'll  want  to  be  pretty  active  to-morrow. 
It'll  be  a  busy  day.  I'll  help  you  all  I  can,  and  the 
Jap,  too,  though  he  doesn't  count  for  much." 

I  went  to  bed  and  lay  very  still,  so  as  not  to  disturb 
the  repose  of  the  good  Doctor  Quaritch.  But  I  doubt 
if  either  of  us  slept  above  an  hour  or  two.  When  I  did 
drop  off  I  was  wrestling  with  Pete  Slattery,  whose  one 
eye  became  a  gigantic  searchlight  and  dazzled  me  so 
that  I  was  blinded  and  dazed  and  had  to  let  him  go. 


[61] 


VI 


GUARDING  THE  BEACH 


WE  were  both  early  astir  in  the  brisk,  biting  air  of 
the  Arctic  morning,  going  down  to  the  lighter  to  see  if 
aught  might  be  learned  of  the  iniquitous  Bill.  I  never 
knew  the  surf  to  sound  so  dismal  or  the  briny  breath 
of  the  ocean  to  be  so  chill  and  discomforting  as  when 
we  reached  the  lone  lighter,  lying  black  and  wet  there 
in  the  wave-washed  sands.  In  places  the  foam  was 
crisply  set  in  icy  bubbbles  that  crackled  under  our  feet. 

There  were  few  people  on  the  beach  and  no  one  about 
the  ugly  flatboat.  We  waited  there  a  little  while  in  the 
cold,  stamping  our  feet  to  keep  them  warm.  Just  as 
we  were  about  to  give  up  the  watch  for  the  time  the 
lighterman  walked  briskly  down  the  sands,  all  bundled 
up  in  his  blanket  coat  and  his  white  breath  hanging 
about  him  like  a  wraith. 

When  I  ran  up  to  him  eagerly  and  inquired  as  to  the 
whereabouts  of  Bill,  the  lighterman  shook  his  head. 

"  Bill's  quit  the  country  —  lit  out  last  night  and  left 
[62] 


Guarding  the  Beach 

me  in  the  lurch  to  git  this  blamed  boat  back  here  all 
alone.  I'm  awfully  sorry  you  lost  your  gold,  my  boy, 
but  you  shouldn't  'a'  took  that  boat." 

"I'll  see  that  you  get  it  again,"  I  promised.  "But 
where's  Bill  gone  ?  " 

"  South,"  was  the  short  reply. 

"South?" 

"Yes;  sailed  on  the  Flyin'  Mist.  She  didn't  git 
away  till  two  or  three  o'clock  this  morning,  I  guess. 
Somethin'  wrong  with  her  machinery,  or  else  the  Cap 
tain  didn't  want  to  buck  the  tide  after  all." 

"  Do  you  know  if  any  other  boats  went  out  to  her  ?  " 

"No;  we  was  the  last  one." 

"  Are  you  sure  ?  " 

"  Well,  of  course  I  didn't  keep  a  lookout  all  night,  but 
I'm  pretty  sure,  just  the  same." 

"  How  do  you  think  Bill  got  away  ?  They  must  have 
wanted  to  leave  him  ashore,  after  what  I  reported  about 
his  helping  to  steal  the  gold.' 

"Oh,  the  Captain  didn't  take  him  knowingly." 

"  How  then  ?     Did  he  stow  himself  away  ?  " 

"  That's  what  I  think.  He  didn't  want  to  make  him 
self  too  numerous  on  deck,  you  can  bet  on  that.  But 
he  was  waitin'  all  the  while  for  that  one-eyed  feller  to 

[63] 


The  Lure  o'  Gold 

come  aboard.  And  they  just  sailed  away  with  him. 
He  must  feel  rotten  cheap  by  this  time." 

When  we  passed  down  to  where  the  Doctor  stood  on 
the  sands  he  made  sharper  queries,  based  on  his  nautical 
knowledge,  but  nothing  shaking  the  ugly  fact  that  Bill 
had  wholly  escaped  us  and  had  gotten  away  on  the 
Flying  Mist  could  be  learned. 

"They  fooled  him  good,"  said  the  lighterman  when 
we  had  fully  discussed  the  robbery  and  Bill's  connec 
tion  with  it,  "  an'  it  serves  the  cuss  jolly  well  right.  He 
allus  was  a-shirkin',  no-account  chap,  but  I  didn't 
think  he'd  jine  a  gang  o'  dust-lifters  like  them." 

"  So  you  think  he  was  really  in  with  the  other  fellows  ?  " 
remarked  the  Doctor. 

"Why,  it's  only  what  I  sispicion,  yeh  know,  but  it 
stands  to  reason,  don't  it  ?  The  critters  that  pulled  up 
the  dust  told  him  they'd  jine  him  in  the  Fly  in'  Mist  an' 
sheer  the  gold  with  him.  So  as  soon  as  the  baggage 
is  off  he  goes  an'  hides  away  on  the  schooner  until  the 
lighter  goes  ashore,  expectin'  all  the  time  them  fellers 
would  come  out  in  their  launch  an'  bring  the  gold  an' 
sail  away  with  him.  But  the  lunkhead  got  left.  He 
might  'a'  knowed  they  wasn't  goin'  to  go  an'  divvy  up 
with  him,  an'  if  he'd  had  a  grain  o'  sense  —  which  he 
[64] 


Guarding  the  Beach 

never  did  have,  as  far  as  I  seen  —  he  might  'a'  knowed 
Capt'n  Transome  wouldn't  stan'  fer  that  kind  of  a  deal, 
even  drunk  as  he  was.  The  other  fellers  was  sharp. 
They're  hid  aroun' the  camp  somewhereswaitin'achanst 
to  git  the  gold  aboard  o'  some  vessel ;  but  they  can't  git 
it  off  on  my  lighter — you  kin  bank  on  that,  gentlemen." 

On  inquiry  from  the  honest  lighterman,  we  found 
that  two  vessels  would  be  sailing  in  the  afternoon,  and 
I  determined  to  hang  about  the  beach  with  as  many 
soldiers  and  as  many  officers  of  the  Committee  of  Safety 
as  I  could  get  to  help  me  in  the  search  for  my  stolen 
treasure. 

I  went  to  the  army  barracks  and  found  Captain 
Walker,  who  had  charge  of  the  detachment  stationed 
near  the  camp. 

"I'll  help  you  all  I  can,"  said  the  Captain,  when  I 
told  him  of  my  loss,  "but  I  doubt  if  anything  can  be 
done."  He  detailed  three  of  his  men  to  make  a  search 
for  the  robbers,  and  the  word  was  passed  among  all  the 
soldiers  of  his  company  to  keep  a  sharp  lookout  for  the 
rascals. 

I  rejoined  the  Doctor  at  the  Golden  North,  and  he 
and  I  went  to  Gus  Clarke's  cabin.  Clarke  was  there 
with  two  other  members  of  the  Committee,  discussing 

[65] 


The  Lure  o9  Gold 

the  robbery.  These  two  were  directed  by  him  to  in 
form  the  others  and  be  on  the  lookout  for  Pete  Slattery 
and  the  pink-faced  man.  It  was  not  long  before  the 
whole  camp  knew  of  my  loss,  and  I  was  stopped  many 
times  in  the  street  by  sympathetic  acquaintances,  who 
wished  to  condole  with  me  and  to  suggest  the  possible 
hiding-place  of  the  robbers.  Many  of  the  miners 
scouted  the  idea  that  the  gold  was  still  in  the  camp. 
Some  wise  oracle  among  them  had  insisted  that  the 
treasure  and  the  robbers  must  all  have  gone  in  the  Fly 
ing  Mist,  and  the  majority  adhered  to  this  theory. 
But  Gus  Clarke  and  his  men  made  a  faithful  search 
about  the  camp  while  the  Doctor  and  I,  together  with 
Yohara,  the  Jap,  lay  about  the  lighters. 

In  the  afternoon,  two  hours  before  the  sailing  of  the 
Robert  Dollar  for  San  Francisco,  four  men  of  the  Com 
mittee  of  Safety  were  on  hand  at  the  lighter  and  closely 
scrutinized  each  passenger  that  went  aboard,  as  well  as 
his  baggage.  My  heart  leaped  when  I  saw  a  treasure- 
box  of  about  the  same  size  and  shape  as  my  own  taken 
aboard  and  tied  with  a  long  line  and  buoy.  The  gold 
was  in  the  charge  of  a  big,  burly  Swede,  who  protested 
violently  when  a  close  inspection  was  made  of  it  by  the 
Committeemen. 

[66] 


Guarding  the  Beach 

"Ay  tank  you  don't  got  any  rights  to  coom  a-mud- 
dlin'  mit  deesen  bokes,"  he  said,  angrily,  shaking  his 
white  hair.  "You  don't  got  any  rights.  I  vait  two 
hours  to  get  me  dis  bokes  on  deesen  boats,  and  I  don't 
vant  no  mans  muddlin'  mit  it." 

When  the  inspectors  saw  the  markings,  one  of  them 
said: 

"It's  Lindbloom's.  He's  one  of  the  biggest  miners 
up  on  Anvil  Creek.  It's  all  right,  my  friend,"  he  added, 
in  pacific  tones  to  the  Swede.  "  We're  only  doing  our 
duty." 

And  the  vigilant  officers  certainly  did  all  that  might 
reasonably  be  expected  of  them.  But  I  was  not  satis 
fied.  I  could  have  wished  that  every  trunk  and  package 
brought  aboard  might  be  opened  and  its  contents  ex 
plored,  that  my  gold  might  be  found  and  restored  to  me. 

Little  Yohara,  who  was  keeping  close  watch,  aston 
ished  us  all  by  madly  springing  upon  a  tall  passenger 
as  he  stepped  upon  the  lighter's  plank  to  go  aboard. 
The  Jap  grasped  the  man  by  the  tail  of  his  long,  loosely 
hanging  parka.  The  passenger  protested,  and  used 
violent  language  while  he  tried  to  shake  off  the  closely 
clinging  Jap;  but  the  little  fellow  had  a  grip  like  a  bull 
terrier,  and  would  not  let  go. 

[67] 


The  Lure  o  Gold 

"  What's  the  matter,  Yo  ?  "  asked  the  Doctor.  "  Whom 
do  you  think  you  have  got  ?  " 

"Gol'  Jobber,  gol'  Jobber  — see!"  he  blew  out  be 
tween  his  short  breaths.  "See,  he  have  disappeared 
his  bad  eye  behind  that-a  thing." 

We  looked  and  saw  that  the  captured  passenger  wore 
a  black  blinder  over  one  of  his  eyes;  but  the  man  was 
not  Slattery. 

"Let  go  of  me,  you  little  heathen!"  shouted  the  in 
nocent  stranger,  not  relishing  the  attack  nor  the  laugh 
ter  of  the  crowd. 

"Yes ;  let  him  go !"  I  commanded.  "He  isn't  the  man." 

But  Yohara  looked  inquiringly  at  the  Doctor,  and 
would  not  relax  his  tenacious  grip  upon  the  long-tailed 
parka  until  his  master  had  recovered  from  the  attack 
of  laughter  —  in  which  his  red  face  grew  redder  than 
ever  —  and  shouted  at  him  to  desist  from  his  over- 
zealous  efforts  to  detain  the  man,  who  was  writhing  and 
shaking  himself  and  calling  out : "  I'll  disappear  your  eye, 
you  little  rascal !  And  you'll  never  see  out  of  it  again ! " 

"Gangway!  gangway!"  shouted  a  man  carrying  a 
big  trunk;  and  Yohara,  covered  with  confusion,  slunk 
back  to  the  Doctor's  side. 

Soon  all  the  passengers  and  their  luggage  were  aboard, 
[68] 


Guarding  the  Beach 

the  tug's  whistle  blew  and  the  lighter  was  towed  out 
through  the  surf,  the  angry  man  in  the  long  parka 
shaking  his  fist  at  the  Jap  by  way  of  adieu  and  the 
Swede  giving  vent  to  uncouth  and  obscure  mutterings. 

We  had  no  better  luck  with  the  Emily  H olden.  Her 
passengers  sailed  after  as  close  an  inspection  as  we  had 
given  those  of  the  Dollar. 

"I  guess  they  ain't  a-goin'  out  to-day,"  said  Gus 
Clarke,  who  took  an  active  part  in  the  second  watch. 
"  They'll  be  laying  low  anyway.  I  didn't  think  it  would 
be  any  good  spying  about  here,  but  of  course  it  was 
a  part  of  our  game.  Hank  James  has  arrested  a  feller 
on  suspicion.  He's  in  the  lockup.  You  might  go  and 
have  a  look  at  him  John." 

I  fairly  ran  to  the  calaboose,  but  when  I  saw  the 
prisoner  I  was  again  disappointed.  He  was  not  one  of 
the  men  whom  I  suspected  of  the  robbery.  He  was  re 
leased,  and  after  making  loud  and  intemperate  threats 
of  prosecution  for  false  imprisonment,  he  went  his  way. 
He  was  such  a  surly  fellow,  and  cursed  me  so  roundly 
for  being  the  cause  of  his  arrest,  that,  as  I  looked  after 
him  while  he  vanished  down  the  road,  I  was  sorry  that  we 
were  not  able  to  keep  him  over  night  in  the  calaboose 
as  a  sort  of  reminder  to  him  to  sweeten  his  language. 

[69] 


VII 
THE  WHITE  BUOY  BOBS  UP 

r 

"PENETRATION!  penetration!"  repeated  the  Doctor 
after  we  had  done  another  hard  day's  work  of  unsuc 
cessful  thief -hunting.  "That  is  what  you  and  I  lack, 
John,  in  this  detective  business.  If  we  were  only  as 
shrewd  as  some  of  Wilkie  Collins's  heroes.  But  I  own 
I  never  was  much  of  a  sleuth,  and  I'm  afraid  our  friends 
of  the  Committee  are  only  good-natured  amateurs. 
One  first-class  Pinkerton  man  now  would  land  those 
fellows  in  jail,  for  I  think  they're  right  here  in  this  camp, 
hiding  away  somewhere,  waiting  for  a  chance  to  levant." 

We  were  standing  on  the  little  porch  of  the  Golden 
North,  looking  out  over  the  sea,  along  which  a  cold 
moon-path  ran  gleaming  to  the  south. 

I  said  nothing,  for  I  had  been  working  early  and  late 
in  this  depressing  business,  and  could  feel  the  subtle 
poison  of  fatigue  creeping  through  my  chilly  frame. 

"  I'm  afraid  it's  no  use,  my  boy  —  no  use.  They're 
too  sly  for  us.  But  there's  no  good  wailing  over  it. 

[70] 


The  White  Buoy  Bobs  Up 

Let's  go  in  and  have  as  good  a  supper  as  this  elegant 
caravansary  can  afford,  and  then  go  to  bed." 

We  went  to  supper,  where  the  Doctor  ate  slowly  and 
with  considerable  gusto.  For  there  were  roasted  ptar- 
magin  and  what  he  called  "rare  old  stout,"  though  I 
had  to  take  his  word  for  that,  as  I  did  not  know  the 
taste  of  liquor.  I  nibbled  nervously  and  was  glad  when 
the  meal  was  over.  The  sense  of  my  loss  grew  upon 
me  as  the  prospect  of  recovering  the  gold  dwindled  from 
hour  to  hour.  It  was  a  relief  to  see  the  Doctor  arise 
from  the  table  and  go  to  sit  before  the  fire  in  the  empty 
office.  He  viewed  my  sour  face  from  the  standpoint 
of  a  man  who  had  just  drank  a  bottle  of  stout  and  is 
preparing  to  enjoy  a  well-stuffed  pipe. 

"As  I  say,  my  boy,"  he  said,  scratching  a  match  on 
the  stove,  "you  musn't  look  at  this  business  so  sadly. 
You  know  (puff)  we're  all  likely  to  loss  (puff),  that  is, 
(puff)  those  of  us  who  have  anything  to  lose.  Now,  I 
never  in  all  my  life  had  half  as  much  money  at  one  time 
as  you  had  in  that  box,  and  I  think  I'm  just  as  well  off. 
Rich  men  don't  sleep  well.  They  have  bad  livers,  too, 
or  have  to  be  operated  on  for  appendicitis  or  something. 
Of  course,  a  little  money's  all  right;  but  just  think  — 
you  might  have  speculated  with  that  gold  of  yours  and 

[71] 


The  Lure  o9  Gold 

got  to  be  a  millionaire.  Then  where  would  you  be  ? 
Right  in  the  insomnia  class,  with  all  manner  of  high- 
priced  complaints,  and  with  a  lot  of  land-shark  doctors 
trying  to  get  your  money  away  from  you." 

"I  don't  sleep  as  it  is,  Doctor,"  said  I,  " so  I  couldn't 
be  any  worse  off  in  that  way  than  I  am  now." 

He  looked  at  my  jaded  eyes,  but  instead  of  sympa 
thizing  with  me,  he  said  bluffly: 

"Well,  young  fellows  like  you  don't  need  a  lot  of 
money,  anyway.  They're  better  off  without  it.  Why 
don't  you  take  to  the  sea  ?  That's  the  life.  You  could 
be  a  quartermaster  or  a  purser  or  something  on  some 
good  ship  like  the  Modesto.  I  tell  you,  you  sleep  on 
the  sea  —  '  rocked  in  the  cradle  of  the  deep,'  you  know. 
There's  nothing  like  it,  my  boy,  nothing  like  it." 

As  we  went  to  our  room  I  moved  my  head  sadly  from 
side  to  side  and  dreaded  the  getting  into  bed,  where  I 
knew  I  should  toss  about  and  think  and  think  of  the 
lost  gold,  and  plan  and  plan  for  its  recover}7. 

"Would  you  be  kind  enough  to  give  me  a  dose  of 
something  to  make  me  sleep,  Doctor  ?  "  I  asked. 

"An  opiate?  Nonsense!"  he  grunted.  "What 
does  a  healthy,  well-nerved  boy  want  of  anything  of 
that  sort  ?  Do  you  take  me  for  one  of  those  doping 

[72] 


The  White  Buoy  Bobs  Up 

doctors  ?  I  don't  give  medicine  except  in  cases  where 
I  really  have  to.  I  know  what's  better  for  you  than 
medicine.  I've  got  a  cheap  copy  of  Boswell  here,  and 
you  just  read  away  at  that,  while  the  candle  burns,  and 
I  guess  it  will  send  you  off  to  sleep  in  an  hour  or  so,  at 
the  most.  If  it  doesn't,  just  blow  out  the  light  and  lie 
there  in  the  dark  and  imagine  you're  out  in  an  open 
boat,  drifting.  Don't  let  your  eyes  close  as  long 
as  you  can  keep  'em  open.  Nature  is  sometimes  a 
little  perverse,  you  know,  and  if  you  try  hard  to  keep 
your  eyes  open  in  bed  she  will  shut  them  for  you  very 
soon." 

The  Boswell  took  me  far  away  from  the  scene  of  my 
anxieties,  and  I  followed  where  it  led  along  the  dingy 
streets  of  old  London  'jntil  I  was  lost  in  their  mazes 
and  did  not  hear  the  Doctor  blow  out  the  light.  Nor 
was  I  alive  to  any  of  the  external  sounds.  In  the  morn 
ing  I  awoke  refreshed  and  with  renewed  hope. 

"Now,  if  you  had  taken  an  opiate,"  said  the  Doctor 
at  breakfast,  "you  might  have  been  as  heavy  as  lead 
this  morning  and  you  wouldn't  have  felt  like  eating. 
All  you  needed  was  to  cut  the  cable  from  the  wharf 
you'd  been  moored  to  so  fast,  and  that  was  what  tire 
some  old  Boswell  did  for  you.  Heigho!  I've  been 

[73] 


The  Lure  o9  Gold 

through  all  that.  There  was  a  time  I  couldn't  sleep. 
That  was  when  I  was  working  in  a  big  hospital,  years 
ago,  and  had  case  after  case  to  operate  upon.  There 
is  nothing  a  man  can  do  that  uses  up  his  nerve  force  so 
fast  as  operating.  A  good  many  say  they  are  schooled 
to  it,  and  all  that,  but  I  notice  that  the  'butchers,'  as  we 
call  the  hardiest  of  the  surgeons,  are  very  often  men 
who  take  a  great  deal  of  stimulant  to  keep  'em  going. 
Of  course,  that's  a  false  backing,  and  they  don't  last 
long  —  they  soon  cave  in.  Sleep  ?  Why,  I've  seen 
the  time  after  a  hard  day  in  the  operating-room  when  I 
could  no  more  sleep  than  I  could  fly.  I've  sat  up  all 
night  and  read  or  walked  the  floor.  But  I  didn't  take 
any  opiates.  No,  sir!  They're  the  last  resort.  I  got  so 
bad,  though,  that  I  had  to  give  it  all  up  and  go  away  to 
sea.  It  did  me  a  world  of  good  —  that  first  voyage  of 
mine.  I  had  often  advised  patients  to  go  to  sea,  but 
had  never  been  there  myself.  I  got  to  like  it  so  well 
that  I  stuck  to  it  like  an  old  salt.  I  got  a  ship's  doc 
tor's  berth  on  the  old  Ocean  Queen,  and  was  in  her 
when  she  was  wrecked  down  near  Melbourne  in  '67. 
Then  I  got  several  places  on  other  vessels,  and  finally 
on  the  Modesto.  I've  stayed  with  her  now  so  long  that 
I  don't  know  what  it  would  seem  like  on  any  other  boat. 

[74] 


The  White  Buoy  Bobs  Up 

We've  got  a  fine  man  for  a  Captain  —  as  good  as  gold. 
You  ought  to  know  Captain  Head." 

"I  think  I  met  him  once,"  said  I. 

"  Did  you  ?  Then  you  met  as  good  a  sailing-master 
as  you'll  find  aboard  of  any  steamer  that  ever  left  San 
Francisco,"  said  the  Doctor,  warmly.  And  he  went 
on  to  tell  me  some  of  the  exploits  of  Captain  Head  in 
storms  and  tight  places,  which  narration  showed  me 
that  the  Modesto's  master  was  certainly  a  man  of  re 
sources. 

"I'm  awfully  sorry,  John,"  said  the  Doctor  at  last, 
"  but  I'm  afraid  I  can't  be  with  you  for  the  next  couple 
of  days.  You  see,  we  sail  Saturday  night,  and  I've 
got  some  shore  business  to  attend  to.  A  friend  of  mine 
down  in  California  wants  me  to  look  at  a  claim  of  his 
up  on  Reindeer  Creek.  I'll  see  you  Saturday.  Hope 
you  will  have  found  your  gold  by  that  time  and  will  be 
ready  to  sail  with  me." 

"Maybe  I  shall,"  said  I,  "and  I'll  be  very  glad  to 
sail  with  you  if  I  do." 

I  went  over  to  Gus  Clarke's  cabin  after  breakfast. 
Mr.  Clarke  gave  me  a  mysterious  look  and  dived  under 
his  bunk  after  a  tangle  of  tackle,  which  he  drew  out  and 
held  up  before  my  eyes  as  he  said: 

[75] 


The  Lure  o'  Gold 

"  Did  you  ever  see  that  before  ?  " 

It  was  a  white  buoy  with  a  long  line  tied  to  it.  I 
looked  at  it  with  a  thrill  of  expectancy,  as  if  my  box 
might  be  attached  to  the  part  that  still  dragged  under 
the  bunk.  I  was  disappointed  when  a  movement  of 
Gus  Clarke's  arm  twitched  into  view  the  cut  and  frayed 
end  of  the  bare  line. 

"  It  looks  like  the  very  buoy  that  was  attached  to  my 
box,"  said  I,  thoughtfully. 

"The  lighterman  says  it's  the  same  one.  He  has 
only  three  or  four,  and  they  are  all  numbered.  See  — 
this  is  number  two."  He  pointed  to  a  small  black 
figure  on  the  side  of  the  buoy. 

"Hi  Means  found  this,"  said  he,  "in  a  deserted 
shanty  down  on  the  Spit,  third  house  beyond  the  ferry. 
Now  I  think  this  shows  sure  enough  that  that  there  gold 
was  brought  ashore  and  not  taken  in  the  Flyin'  Mist. 
If  they  had  'a'  shipped  it  out  to  the  schooner  they  would 
have  had  no  further  use  for  this  here  thing  and  would 
'a'  chucked  it  overboard.  But,  you  see,  they  wanted  to 
keep  it  tied  on,  for  fear  of  some  accident  that  would 
send  it  into  the  water  again.  So  they  jest  brought  the 
whole  business  ashore  with  them.  Don't  that  sound 
reasonable  ?  " 

[76] 


The  White  Buoy  Bobs  Up 

I  nodded  assent,  though  I  was  not  much  impressed 
by  the  argument,  as  it  seemed  productive  of  nothing 
that  would  bring  my  lost  gold  nearer  to  me. 

Gus  Clarke  went  on  to  say  that  the  cabin  where  the 
buoy  was  found  had  been  occupied  by  an  old  man  who 
owned  one  of  the  little  ferry-boats  that  plied  across  the 
narrow  Snake  river.  But  the  man  had  disappeared, 
leaving  nothing  in  the  cabin  but  an  old  rusty  camp 
stove  and  a  pair  of  worn-out  overalls.  The  buoy,  with 
the  rope  wound  carelessly  around  it,  had  been  found 
in  a  corner.  Whether  the  ancient  ferryman  had  any 
thing  to  do  with  its  presence  there  was  not  apparent. 
I  went  with  Gus  Clarke  to  the  ferryman's  cabin,  and  we 
poked  about  under  the  loose  flooring  and  tore  out  some 
of  the  lining  in  the  effort  to  find  something  that  might 
give  us  a  better  clew.  Our  patient  search  was  not  re 
warded.  Inquiry  among  the  miners  of  the  Spit  as  to 
the  occupant  of  the  cabin  gave  us  nothing  further  to 
work  upon.  At  the  ferry  they  told  us  that  the  old  man 
had  been  gone  a  week  and  that  nobody  had  been  living 
in  the  cabin  in  the  meantime.  They  had  not  seen  any 
one  enter  the  place,  though  it  would  have  been  an  easy 
matter  for  a  person  to  come  and  go  in  the  night  without 
observation. 

[77] 


The  Lure  o9  Gold 

It  would  have  made  an  old  detective  smile  to  see 
how  I  clung  to  that  buoy,  the  one  remaining  object  that 
related  to  my  lost  treasure.  During  the  whole  of  my 
careful  inquiry  I  came  and  went  along  the  beach  with 
that  white  object  closely  hugged  under  my  arm.  To 
ward  evening,  however,  when  I  saw  that  no  good  could 
come  of  carrying  it  about,  I  took  it  down  to  the  lighter 
man's  station  and  handed  it  over  to  him.  It  was  his 
property,  and  I  had  sadly  concluded  that  it  would  be  of 
more  service  to  him  than  it  could  ever  be  to  me.  In 
fact,  in  my  hopeless  state,  I  began  to  wish  that  it  never 
had  marked  the  place  where  the  treasure  fell  overboard. 
For  then  the  villains  could  not  now  be  enjoying  the 
fortune  with  which  I  had  counted  upon  doing;  so  much. 


[78] 


VIII 


A  GLIMPSE  OF  THE  POETICAL  PIRATE 


NOTHING  came  of  my  inquiries  of  the  next  day.  I 
walked  over  the  tundra  hummocks  to  Anvil  Creek  on  a 
wild-goose  chase  after  a  one-eyed  man  who  had  been 
reported  to  be  up  that  way.  Tundra  walking  about 
Nome  is  hard  work.  You  step  from  one  of  the  "  nig 
ger-heads,"  as  the  grass  clumps  are  called,  to  another, 
sometimes  springing  over  awkward  spaces  of  water 
and  mud,  and  on  occasion  losing  the  shaky  and  treach 
erous  foothold  and  being  bogged  down  over  your  knees. 

After  making  one  of  these  slips  I  felt  a  prickly  sensa 
tion  in  one  of  my  heels  and  soon  found  myself  favoring 
the  left  foot,  though  I  had  but  a  vague  sense  of  lame 
ness.  I  limped  into  camp  at  Anvil  and  found  my  one- 
eyed  man  to  be  an  innocent  German  who  was  shoveling 
gravel  into  a  sluice-box,  unconscious  of  having  been  the 
cause  of  the  hard  tramp  of  an  amateur  sleuth  over  the 
boggy  tundra. 

I  ate  dinner  there,  telling  no  one  of  the  reason  of  my 
[79] 


The  Lure  o'  Gold 

visit  to  the  camp,  and  limped  back  to  Nome,  a  distance 
of  over  ten  miles.  My  heel  and  the  back  of  my  ankle 
gave  me  such  pain  by  the  time  I  reached  the  Golden 
North  that  I  was  glad  to  see  the  round,  smiling  face  of 
Doctor  Quaritch  above  the  supper-board. 

"  Lame  ? "  he  asked,  as  I  limped  upstairs  with  him 
after  supper.  "Let's  see." 

I  took  off  my  boot  and  stocking  when  we  reached 
our  room,  and  he  felt  of  the  heel  and  ankle  with  gentle 
fingers. 

"Tendon  Achilles  strained,  my  boy.  No  wonder 
you  limped.  You  come  aboard  ship  with  me  and  I'll 
fix  you  up.  We  sail  to-night,  you  know.  Wish  you 
were  going  with  us." 

We  went  off  to  the  Modesto  in  the  moonlight  in  the 
steamer's  boat,  Doctor  Quaritch,  Yohara  and  I.  I 
was  glad  of  an  excuse  to  be  with  the  Doctor  as  long  as  I 
could,  and  to  say  "  good-bye  "  to  him  at  the  last  possible 
moment,  for  I  knew  I  should  be  very  lonely  when  he 
should  be  gone.  Soon  the  hull  of  the  big  vessel  lay 
before  us. 

"  She's  pretty  high  out  of  water,  isn't  she  ?  "  remarked 
the  Doctor.  "  We  brought  up  a  big  cargo  of  machinery 
and  supplies  for  the  miners,  but  there  isn't  anything 

[80] 


A  Glimpse  of  the  Poetical  Pirate 

in  the  way  of  freight  to  go  back,  and  I  guess  we  won't 
take  on  ballast  until  we  get  to  Dutch  Harbor.  That's 
on  Unalaska,  in  the  Aleutian  Islands,  where  we  get  our 
coal." 

We  went  aboard  the  Modesto,  and  in  his  little  state 
room  amidships  the  Doctor  bathed  my  foot  and  wound 
a  long  piece  of  sticky  plaster  band  around  the  ankle 
and  under  the  heel,  crossing  it  over  the  instep  like  one  of 
the  sandal  latches  you  see  in  pictures  of  ancient  footgear. 

"Be  careful  of  that  foot  for  a  few  days,  John,"  he 
cautioned,  "and  it  will  be  all  right.  What's  that? 
Eight  bells  ?  Well,  we'll  be  pulling  out  of  here  in  a 
little  while." 

"Then  I  must  get  ashore,"  said  I.  We  walked  to 
the  ship's  ladder  and  stood  for  a  few  moments  looking 
down  on  the  dark  little  lighter  as  it  rose  and  fell  along 
side.  I  was  grieved  to  lose  the  Doctor,  and  as  I  looked 
ashore  to  where  the  camp  lay  in  the  solemn  moonlight, 
it  seemed  more  dismal  to  me  than  ever. 

"Awfully  sorry  you  can't  come,"  said  the  Doctor, 
taking  my  hand.  "  I  don't  see  why  you  can't  do  it.  I 
don't  think  there's  much  chance  of  your  ever  getting 
sight  of  those  pirates  again.  They  know  what  they're 
up  to.  No  doubt  they've  made  away  safely  by  this 

[81] 


The  Lure  o  Gold 

time.     Besides,  you're  lame.     It  won't  do  that  foot  any 
good  to  be  tramping  about  on  it.     If  I  were  you  —  " 

"No,"  I  interrupted,  shortly  and  rudely,  with  strong 
determination  not  to  be  tempted  home  until  I  had  done 
all  I  could  do  to  find  the  lost  treasure.  "No,  Doctor; 
please  don't  ask  me.  I've  got  to  catch  those  thieves  — 
I've  got  to  get  that  gold.  I  couldn't  go  home  until  I 
had  exhausted  every  chance  there  might  be  of  success. 
Not  but  that  I  should  enjoy  sailing  home  with  you. 
Nothing  would  suit  me  better.  But  under  the  circum 
stances  —  " 

"  All  ashore ! "  rang  a  vibrant  voice. 

I  said  "  Good-bye,"  and  turned  to  step  down  the  lad 
der,  when  the  Doctor  called  out: 

"  Hold  on  a  minute,  John !  I'm  going  to  run  down 
and  get  another  strip  of  that  plaster  for  you,  so  you'll 
have  a  fresh  one  to  put  on  when  this  gets  old."  He 
trotted  away,  and  I  stood  leaning  against  the  rail,  look 
ing  incuriously  at  the  passengers  as  they  moved  about 
in  the  chill  night  air,  some  of  them  stamping  their  feet 
and  beating  their  arms  against  their  sides  to  keep  them 
warm,  for  it  had  come  on  quite  cold.  Three  or  four 
men  went  down  the  ladder  at  the  ship's  side  and  got 
aboard  the  lighter. 

[82] 


A  Glimpse  of  the  Poetical  Pirate 

Of  a  sudden  a  figure  stole  past  me  in  the  dim  light  — 
that  of  a  man  in  a  dark  parka,  the  collar  of  which,  being 
turned  high,  muffled  his  face,  while  a  bandage  about 
his  forehead  concealed  his  brow  and  shaded  one  eye. 
The  other  eye,  however,  was  clearly  visible  and  flashed 
brightly  before  me. 

"  Who  is  that  man  ?  "  I  demanded  of  the  nearest  pas 
senger,  as  the  figure  dodged  back  quickly  and,  as  I 
thought,  furtively,  into  the  crowd  along  the  rail. 

"  What  man  ?  "  was  the  reply. 

"The  one  with  the  bandage  around  his  head." 

"  I  don't  know  his  name.  I  heard  it  was  a  feller  'at 
got  hurt  in  a  blast  over  at  Rock  Creek.  Miners  takes 
lots  o'  chances,  don't  they?" 

But  I  made  no  response.  I  was  dazedly  thinking  of 
that  one  bright  eye. 

"  Is  it  he  ?  Is  it  he  ? "  I  was  asking  myself  over 
and  over,  trying  to  help  a  vague  impression  to  deepen 
from  doubt  into  certainty.  "  Is  it  Pete  Slattery  ?  But 
it  can't  be.  He  wouldn't  venture  aboard  here  where  he 
would  be  likely  to  be  recognized  unless  he  felt  sure  of 
his  disguise.  But  is  it  the  man  ?  " 

I  was  all  in  a  whirl  when  the  Doctor  came  running 
back,  breathing  hard. 

[83] 


The  Lure  o  Gold 

(<  All  ashore ! "  yelled  the  vibrant  voice  a  second  time. 

"  Well,  good-bye ! "  said  the  Doctor,  seizing  my  hand 
again. 

What  external  intelligence  I  possessed  was  merged 
into  a  mute  hand-grip.  But  all  my  real  consciousness 
was  concentrated  upon  the  fleeting  and  baffling  vision 
of  that  burning  eye. 

"  Good-bye,"  I  said,  with  intense  preoccupation,  and 
stood  stock-still. 

"There's  nothing  the  matter  with  you,  is  there, 
John  ?  "  asked  the  Doctor.  "  You  aren't  ill,  are  you  ?  " 

"No,"  said  I;  "I'm  all  right.  Good-bye!"  I 
seized  his  hand  again  in  my  confused  abstraction. 
"  Good-bye ! "  I  repeated,  and  yet  I  did  not  move. 

"All  ashore!" 

"  Can  it  be  —  can  it  be  the  man  ?  "  I  was  struggling 
with  the  uncertainty  of  the  impression,  commanding  it 
and  yielding  to  it  by  turns. 

"Ain't  yeh  comin'  ashore,  young  feller?"  called  out 
the  lighterman  from  below.  "If  yeh  be,  yeh'd  better 
git  a  move  on." 

I  limped  down  the  steps  to  the  lighter's  deck,  and 
stood  near  the  bottom  stair  when  one  of  the  lines  was 
cast  off.  The  tugboat  whistled  shrilly.  A  man  ran  to 

[84] 


A  Glimpse  of  the  Poetical  Pirate 

loosen  the  last  line,  and  while  he  was  doing  so  and  the 
space  between  the  flatboat  and  the  steamer  had  grown 
a  few  inches,  my  vague,  harassing  doubt  flashed  into 
sudden  conviction,  and,  giving  myself  up  to  a  wild  im 
pulse,  I  sprang  at  the  steps,  grasped  the  side  rails  and 
drew  myself  up  over  the  hazardous,  widening  water- 
space. 

"  What's  the  matter  ? "  called  an  angry  voice  from 
the  lighter.  "  Don't  yeh  know  which  way  ye're  goin'  ?  " 

"  What's  the  matter  ?  "  echoed  the  Doctor,  as  I  sprang 
upon  the  steamer's  deck. 

"  Matter  ?  "  I  repeated,  not  caring  to  confide  my  secret 
to  any  who  might  be  within  earshot.  "Matter? 
Nothing's  the  matter,  only  I  take  back  all  those  '  good 
byes.'  I'm  going  to  sail  with  you." 

"  Good ! "  cried  the  Doctor,  almost  embracing  me. 
"  Mighty  glad  to  hear  it." 

"Up  with  the  ladder!"  commanded  the  first  officer. 

I  looked  down  at  the  lighter  as  she  drifted  away,  her 
tug  chugging  harshly  in  the  quiet  night  air  and  her  men 
calling  out  rude  farewells  to  their  friends  aboard. 

A  hoarse,  deep-toned  whistle  boomed  out  over  the 
steamer's  deck.  There  was  a  gathering  groan  of 
machinery  and  a  throb  —  throb  —  throbbing  down 

[85] 


The  Lure  o  Gold 

below.  By  a  strange  and  sudden  turn  of  fortune  there 
I  was  on  my  way  to  San  Francisco,  in  the  same  craft 
with  the  man  —  or,  at  least,  one  of  the  men  —  by  whose 
agency  such  harsh  vicissitudes  had  been  visited  upon 
me.  Off  for  San  Francisco,  as  I  had  set  forth  before, 
and  now  under  what  different  and  bewildering  circum 
stances  !  But  here  at  last  was  hope.  One  of  the  pirates 
—  and,  perhaps,  another  —  was  within  reach.  Well, 
they  should  not  escape  me.  And  the  gold  ?  My  spirits 
rose,  my  senses  were  all  subtly  alert.  If  they  had 
brought  it  aboard  it  should  not  long  remain  in  their 
thievish  hands.  I  should  have  it  again  and  sail  back 
with  it  to  my  anxious  father  —  sail  back  in  that  very 
ship  every  throb  of  whose  giant  heart  was  saying, 
"  Home  —  home  —  home ! " 

I  took  Doctor  Quaritch  aside  and  told  him  the  true 
reason  why  I  had  so  suddenly  decided  to  stay  aboard 
the  Modesto. 

"  Great  Scott ! "  he  exclaimed,  lifting  his  eybrows  in 
astonishment.  Then  he  whistled  low.  "But  you 
must  be  dreaming,"  he  added.  "The  man  wouldn't 
have  dared.  Well,  yes;  he  might  have  disguised  him 
self  and  come  aboard  in  a  small  boat,  but  not  on  the 
lighter,  for  it  was  well  watched.  We  must  look  into 

[86] 


A  Glimpse  of  the  Poetical  Pirate 

this  at  once.  I'll  tell  Captain  Head."  He  started  up. 
Then  he  sat  down  again.  "  We  musn't  be  in  too  great 
a  hurry,"  he  said.  "Let's  think.  Suppose  we  begin 
a  little  investigation  on  our  own  account.  I'll  go  and 
see  the  purser.  You'd  better  come,  too.  You'll  want 
to  arrange  for  your  passage.  I  have  an  extra  berth  in 
my  stateroom.  Better  come  in  with  me.  You  might 
fall  into  bad  company,"  he  said,  his  blue  eyes  twinkling. 
"And,  seriously  speaking,  you  can't  tell  what  trouble 
you  may  have  if  your  piratical  Pete  Slattery  is  really 
on  board." 

"Thank  you,  Doctor;  I'll  be  glad  to  accept  your 
offer,"  said  I,  "and  my  baggage  won't  clutter  up  your 
room,  for  I  haven't  any." 

We  went  to  the  purser's  cabin,  and  as  that  functionary 
and  the  Doctor  were  on  the  best  of  terms,  there  was  no 
trouble  in  finding  out  all  that  was  to  be  ascertained  re 
garding  Pete  Slattery  in  that  quarter.  Of  course  the 
name  was  not  on  the  passenger  list,  and,  so  far  as  the 
purser  knew,  there  was  no  one-eyed  man  on  board. 

"To  be  sure  I  haven't  had  time  to  make  any  close 
observation  as  yet,"  said  the  purser,  smiling,  "but  I 
can  go  around  with  you  in  the  morning  on  pretense  of 
examining  berth-checks,  or  something,  and  look  over 

[87] 


The  Lure  o'  Gold 

the  first-class  passengers.  There  aren't  more  than  a 
couple  of  dozen.  Your  man  will  probably  keep  close 
to  his  room  and  pretend  seasickness,  so  as  not  to  show 
himself  any  more  than  is  necessary." 

"But  he's  disguised,"  said  I. 

"  That  may  be,"  said  the  purser,  "  but  if  he's  aboard, 
you  can  find  him  out  somewhere." 

"He  probably  doesn't  know  you're  on  the  ship," 
said  the  Doctor  to  me.  "The  cold  air  out  on  deck 
drove  nearly  all  of  'em  in  before  the  lighter  got  away, 
and,  besides,  your  man  was  doubtless  anxious  to  get  out 
of  sight.  He  will  not  be  expecting  to  see  you  aboard, 
and  in  a  day  or  two  will  be  less  anxious  about  conceal 
ing  himself." 

That  night,  as  I  lay  in  my  narrow  berth  in  the  Doc 
tor's  stateroom,  I  thought  of  Gus  Clarke  and  the  Com 
mittee  of  Safety  and  also  of  Captain  Walker.  I  won 
dered  what  they  would  think  of  my  disappearance.  I 
determined  to  write  to  them  as  soon  as  I  reached  San 
Francisco  and  let  them  know  I  was  still  alive. 

I  was  up  and  out  early  in  the  morning,  looking  for 
Pete  Slattery  and  his  companion.  I  lingered  in  the 
saloon  and  in  the  smoking-room,  and  out  on  deck,  peer 
ing  about  eagerly.  Before  nine  o'clock  I  had  seen  all 

[88] 


A  Glimpse  of  the  Poetical  Pirate 

but  four  of  the  cabin  passengers,  and  there  was  no  one- 
eyed  man  among  them. 

At  ten  o'clock  the  purser  went  with  me  into  some  of 
the  staterooms,  and  I  had  an  opportunity  of  seeing  sea 
sickness  in  various  stages,  but  caught  no  glimpse  of  the 
man  for  whom  I  was  so  eagerly  searching. 

"They  couldn't  have  taken  first-class  passage,"  said 
the  purser,  as  we  sat  in  the  Doctor's  stuffy  stateroom. 

"  Well,  it's  not  likely  they'd  travel  in  the  steerage," 
surmised  the  Doctor,  "with  all  that  gold  in  their  pos 
session." 

"No,  it  isn't,"  said  the  purser,  "but  you  can't  tell. 
Maybe  they  thought  they  could  put  up  with  the  steer 
age  a  couple  of  weeks  for  the  sake  of  keeping  out  of 
sight  as  much  as  possible." 

"Their  names  wouldn't  appear  on  the  steerage  list," 
remarked  the  Doctor.  "  For  of  course  they  have  taken 
false  ones  —  if  they're  on  board  at  all,  which  I'm  not 
so  sure  of;  for  this  young  gentleman  caught  only  a 
glimpse  of  his  man,  and  might  easily  have  been  mis 
taken." 

"No,"  I  insisted  stoutly.  "I  am  sure  it  was  he.  I 
have  fixed  his  eye  in  my  mind.  There  can't  be  any  mis 
take.  He's  the  man,  and  I'm  going  to  find  him  before 

[89] 


The  Lure  o9  Gold 

we  get  to  San  Francisco,  if  I  have  to  search  this  ship 
all  over." 

"That's  the  way  to  talk,"  said  the  Doctor,  smiling. 
But  I  could  see  that  he  was  only  half  convinced  after  all. 


[90] 


IX 

IN  THE  STEERAGE 

r 

PROFESSIONAL  duty  called  the  Doctor  to  the  steerage 
during  the  afternoon,  and  I  went  down  with  him  to 
look  about  for  the  gold-thieves.  I  had  already  seen 
most  of  the  steerage  passengers.  There  were  about 
fifty  of  them,  chiefly  men  who  were  going  home 
"  strapped  "  and  dejected  after  their  profitless  journey 
to  the  Arctic.  They  had  used  up  the  last  of  their 
"  grub-stakes  "  and  were  barely  able  to  secure  the  poor 
est  return  passage. 

I  had  seen  those  men  on  the  forward  deck,  where 
they  huddled  together,  with  their  hands  in  their  pockets, 
looking  over  the  flashing  brine  with  spiritless  gaze  — 
the  most  depressed  set  of  men  I  had  ever  looked  upon. 
But  Slattery  had  not  shown  himself  on  deck.  He  was 
probably  lurking  somewhere  below.  I  had  thought 
that  the  finding  of  him  and  his  pink-faced  companion 
might  prove  a  difficult  task,  as  they  could  have  stowed 
themselves  away  so  securely  somewhere  in  the  vessel's 

[91] 


The  Lure  o'  Gold 

hold  as  to  escape  all  the  prying  eyes  that  might  be 
searching  for  them. 

But  when  Doctor  Quaritch  and  I  went  down  into 
the  steerage,  and  I  sat  aft  near  the  starboard  corner, 
while  the  Doctor  made  an  examination  of  his  patient,  I 
looked  into  the  dimly  lighted  angle,  and  there,  at  a 
table,  playing  at  cribbage  and  smoking  their  pipes, 
sat  Pete  Slattery  and  the  little  pink-faced  man,  as  cool 
as  you  please. 

The  poet  still  had  his  head  bandaged  in  a  way  to 
conceal  his  blind  eye,  but  the  pink-faced  man  had  made 
no  attempt  to  disguise  himself,  probably  relying  upon 
the  fact  that  he  was  unknown  to  the  miners  aboard  the 
vessel. 

Without  the  long  parka  and  its  high  collar,  which  he 
had  worn  the  previous  night,  it  was  easy  for  me  to 
recognize  the  form  and  the  face  of  Slattery,  and  I  won 
dered  if  he  really  had  thought  of  deceiving  people  by 
his  attempt  to  conceal  the  loss  of  his  eye.  It  might 
have  been  the  bandage  was  merely  intended  to  aid  the 
poet  in  getting  aboard  in  the  night,  when  he  had  thought 
that  any  sort  of  disguise,  however  slight,  might  safely 
be  relied  upon.  Once  aboard  and  settled  down  in  the 
steerage  it  may  have  been  that  he  was  a  little  more  care- 

[92] 


In  the  Steerage 

less  as  to  his  identity  being  discovered.  He  must  have 
deemed  it  reasonably  certain  that  no  one  aboard  the 
Modesto  would  take  as  much  interest  in  him  as  the  sol 
diers  and  the  Committee  of  Safety  who  were  on  the 
lookout  for  him  ashore.  But  to  find  me  aboard  must 
have  been  something  of  a  surprise.  It  occurred  to  me, 
as  I  stole  cautious  glances  at  him,  that  he  could  not 
fear  me  so  much  in  the  ship  as  in  the  mining  camp, 
where  the  crime  of  dust-robbing  was  one  of  the  most 
heinous  a  man  might  commit,  and  was  often  punished 
most  severely,  even  on  the  slightest  evidence  against 
the  supposed  offender. 

As  soon  as  the  Doctor  was  done  with  his  patient,  I 
hastened  to  apprise  him  of  my  discovery.  He 
glanced  at  the  men  and  then  looked  away. 

"  Don't  let  them  see  you  paying  so  much  attention  to 
them,"  said  he,  "or  they  will  take  alarm.  They  may 
not  know  that  you  really  suspect  them.  If  you  can 
throw  them  off  their  guard  it  will  be  better.  And  re 
member  —  you  have  no  proof  that  they  stole  your 
gold." 

I  saw  the  force  of  this  counsel,  although  my  fingers 
were  tingling  to  seize  upon  the  slim  neck  of  Pete  Slat- 
tery  and  choke  out  of  him  a  confession  of  the  robbery 

[93] 


The  Lure  o'  Gold 

and  the  whereabouts  of  the  stolen  treasure.  It  now 
seemed  to  me  doubtful  that  the  rascals  could  have 
brought  the  gold  aboard.  They  might  have  exchanged 
it  for  paper  money,  in  which  case  I  should  have  little 
chance  of  recognizing  it,  after  all. 

The  Doctor  and  I  sauntered  along  the  steerage  deck, 
and  on  nearing  the  corner  where  the  card-players  sat  I 
stepped  casually  up  to  them  and  gave  what  I  intended 
for  an  incurious  glance  at  the  one-eyed  man.  He  did 
not  see  me  for  a  moment,  for  his  good  eye  was  on  the 
further  side.  His  partner,  however,  was  quicker  to 
note  my  presence.  He  started  and  dropped  some  of 
his  cards  on  the  floor.  He  gave  a  slight  cough,  and 
Pete  Slattery's  one  eye  looked  straight  at  me  and  with 
as  little  trepidation  as  you  could  imagine.  He  must 
have  seen  at  a  glance  my  look  of  full  recognition.  Yes, 
he  certainly  was  a  cool  customer  —  the  coolest  I  ever 
have  seen  in  all  my  journeyings. 

"So  you  changed  your  mind,"  he  remarked,  with  a 
smile  and  an  offhand  tone  that  I  thought  would  have 
been  the  despair  of  a  professional  detective,  though  I 
must  admit  that  a  smile  that  lacks  an  eye  is  a  poor 
affair  and  not  in  the  least  assuring.  "You  didn't  sail 
in  the  Flying  Mist.,  after  all.  You  changed  your  mind/* 

[94] 


In  the  Steerage 

"Yes,"  I  replied,  finding  it  extremely  difficult  to  be 
civil  to  the  villain,  though  it  were  the  better  policy  for 
the  time ;  "  and  you  changed  yours,  too,  didn't  you  — 
you  and  your  friend  ?  " 

"Oh,  did  you  think  we  were  going  to  sail  in  that 
crazy  little  craft?  No,  sir-ee;  we  hadn't  the  slightest 
notion  of  it.  We  waited  ashore  until  the  Modesto  was 
ready  to  sail.  I  wrote  three  poems  while  I  was  waiting. 
Want  to  hear  them?  One  is  entitled  'The  Alaskan 
Moon.'  It  is  the  best." 

"  Why  are  you  wearing  that  bandage  ?  "  I  asked. 

"Oh,  I  caught  cold,  and  it  settled  here,"  he  replied, 
tapping  the  cloth  over  the  place  where  his  lost  eye  had 
been. 

He  fumbled  in  the  inside  pocket  of  his  coat  and  pro 
duced  some  little  dirty-white  pieces  of  paper,  covered 
with  pencil  scrawls. 

Meanwhile,  the  pink-faced  man  regained  his  com 
posure  enough  to  say,  by  way  of  explanation : 

"  Why,  even  if  we  had  intended  to  do  it,  we  couldn't 
have  gone  in  the  Flying  Mist  anyway." 

"  Why  not  ?  "  I  asked,  all  on  the  alert.  "  She  wasn't 
crowded." 

"  I  know  that,  but  you  see  people  has  to  have  money 
[95] 


The  Lure  o>  Gold 

to  sail  in  her  —  all  first-class  passengers.  Here  we  git 
steerage." 

"Which  is  cheaper,"  put  in  the  poet,  "and  more 
suitable  to  the  circumstances  of  poor,  stranded 
miners." 

"  So  you  were  stranded  ?  "  I  asked. 

"  Yes.  I  had  to  apply  to  a  friend  of  mine  to  buy  our 
passage  tickets  for  the  Modesto." 

"But  your  friend  Bill,"  I  could  not  help  throwing 
out.  "  He  sailed  in  the  Flying  Mist,  didn't  he  ?  " 

"  Bill  ? "  The  single  eye  burned  keenly,  as  if  it 
could  look  me  through.  "What  bill  —  hotel  bill?" 
he  added,  trying  by  this  cheap  pleasantry  to  overcome 
the  effect  which  he  must  have  felt  his  stabbing  eye  made 
upon  me.  "I  do  not  know  what  or  who  you  have 
reference  to,  my  friend.  But  here's  my  poem,  'The 
Alaskan  Moon.'  May  be  you  and  your  partner  would 
like  to  hear  it." 

I  hesitated.  I  was  burning  with  impatience  to  do 
something  that  should  force  these  pirates  to  the  point 
which  I  wished  to  have  settled  as  soon  as  possible,  and 
was  in  no  mood  to  hear  his  cheap  doggerel. 

"Yes,  read  it,"  said  the  Doctor,  who,  as  I  after 
ward  understood,  seized  this  opportunity  to  gain  time 

[*»] 


BILL 


In  the  Steerage 

to  study  the  rogues.  "'The  Alaskan  Moon.'  That 
ought  to  be  a  bright  subject  for  a  poem." 

"  Well,  sir,"  said  the  poet,  addressing  the  Doctor  in 
very  humble  tones.  "If  you  will  excuse  the  faulty 
rhymes.  You  know  I  just  dashed  off  this  little  piece 
and  haven't  taken  time  to  fix  it  up  as  it  should  be." 

He  read  the  verses.  There  was  a  long  string  of 
them,  and  to  me  they  were  very  tiresome;  but  the  Doc 
tor  did  not  seem  to  be  bored.  In  fact,  he  commented 
on  the  sentiment  quite  pleasantly. 

"  Ain't  that  all  right  ?"  asked  the  pink-faced  man, 
addressing  the  Doctor,  whose  smile  of  encouragement 
seemed  to  reassure  him. 

"  Why,  the  idea  is  good,"  replied  the  Doctor,  good- 
naturedly.  "  I'm  not  saying  anything  about  the  poetry, 
mind  you,  for  I'm  no  judge  of  that.  But  the  idea  of 
the  moon  getting  its  cold  glitter  from  the  northern  ice 
fields  is  all  right." 

"  I  thought  it  was  pretty  fair,"  said  the  poet,  proudly, 
"though  not  as  good  as  some  I've  written.  I'm  glad 
you  like  it.  Appreciation  is  what  a  poet  needs,  you 
know.  Many  a  poet  has  suffered  for  the  want  of  it." 

"  That's  so,"  said  the  Doctor,  with  a  side  glance  at  me. 
"  That's  so.  And  it's  true  of  a  good  many  other  things 

[97] 


The  Lure  o'  Gold 

besides  poetry.     How  did  you  come  to  be  stranded  at 
Nome?" 

"Oh,  the  beach  claims  was  all  taken  up,"  said  the 
pink-faced  man,  replying  for  his  partner,  "  and  we 
didn't  have  no  money  to  buy  anybody  out." 

"Well,  there  were  the  tundra  and  the  creeks,"  sug 
gested  the  Doctor. 

"  Yes,"  said  the  poet,  "  but  it  takes  capital  to  work  on 
the  creeks,  and  the  tundra  is  very  uncertain.  We 
could  not  afford  to  buy  the  costly  machinery  to  thaw 
out  the  ice,  and  all  that.  But  we  may  return.  We're 
going  below  to  try  to  raise  money,  you  know." 

"  And,  meantime,  all  you  can  do  is  to  play  cards  and 
write  poetry,"  remarked  the  Doctor,  with  a  smile  of 
good-fellowship  that  incensed  me,  so  ill  applied  did  it 
seem  in  this  place. 

"  Yes,  I've  got  two  or  three  pieces  started.  May  be 
I  can  sell  'em  when  I  get  below,  and  raise  a  little  money 
that  way.  Don't  you  think  'The  Alaskan  Moon' 
would  go  well,  set  to  music  ?  "  He  reproduced  the  dirty- 
white  sheets  and  seemed  anxious  to  read  the  jingle  again. 

"It  might,"  said  the  Doctor,  moving  off.  "Good- 
day,  gentlemen.  I  must  go  and  see  a  patient  on  the 
upper  deck." 

[98] 


In  the  Steerage 

We  passed  along  out  of  the  steerage,  the  Doctor 
quietly  alluding  to  the  poem  in  a  way  that  would  have 
been  very  amusing  to  me  at  another  time.  As  to  the 
meter,  he  remarked,  when  we  were  out  of  hearing  of 
the  poet,  "I'm  afraid  some  of  the  feet  need  plaster 
bands  on  them,  like  the  one  you  are  wearing.  How  is 
your  foot  to-day,  John  ?  " 

I  could  hardly  reply  decently.  I  was  out  of  patience 
with  my  friend  that  he  should  have  been  able  so  calmly 
to  placate  the  rascals  and  then  walk  away  discussing 
matters  other  than  the  one  that  touched  me  so  closely. 

"Well,"  he  replied  at  last,  when  on  reaching  his 
stateroom  I  asked  what  he  thought  of  the  situation. 
"It  looks  involved,  my  boy.  Your  poetical  pirate  is 
either  very  deep  or  very  harmless,  I  can't  tell  which. 
On  a  superficial  examination,  I  should  diagnose  his 
case  as  that  of  a  worthless  bummer,  a  cheap  wit  and  a 
very  bad  verse-maker.  I  suspect  that  there  is  a  twist 
somewhere  in  his  mental  processes.  Whether  he  is 
really  a  thief  or  not,  and  the  thief  that  helped  to  make 
away  with  your  gold  —  that's  another  matter." 

"But,  Doctor,"  I  began,  much  annoyed  by  his  cool 
ness,  "  I'm  sure  —  " 

"You  are  no  more  sure  that  those  men  stole  your 
[99] 


The  Lure  o'  Gold 

dust  than  you  are  of  the  depth  of  the  water  immediately 
under  you,  or  of  your  precise  latitude  and  longitude. 
But  we  may  be  able  to  get  some  sort  of  assurance  of 
their  connection  with  the  robbery,  though  you  must 
admit  it  barely  stands  to  reason  that  men  of  that  ilk 
would  be  in  the  steerage,  smoking  cheap  tobacco,  when 
they  could  be  in  the  best  stateroom,  smoking  two-bit 
cigars.  You'll  have  to  hold  yourself  in,  my  boy  — 
hold  yourself  in,  and  lie  low  and  watch  very  cautiously. 
Something  may  turn  up  before  we  reach  the  Golden 
Gate." 

I  ascertained  from  the  purser  that  the  poet  and  his 
partner  had  taken  passage  under  the  names  of  J.  R. 
Trust  and  George  Somers.  It  seemed  to  me  that  the 
name  of  Trust  had  been  chosen  by  Pete  Slattery  to 
inspire  confidence  in  the  minds  of  those  whom  he  might 
meet  aboard  and  to  offset  the  sinister  appearance  of 
his  evil  eye. 


[100] 


X 


A  HEAVY  TRUNK 


HAVING  the  run  of  the  ship,  because  of  my  intimate 
friendship  with  the  Doctor,  there  was  hardly  any  ac 
cessible  place  aboard  that  I  did  not  venture  into  or 
upon.  I  liked  well  to  stand  upon  the  bridge  in  the 
clear,  white  sunlight,  and  look  across  the  waste  of 
white,  tumbling  waters,  and  smell  the  good,  clean  salt 
smell  of  the  sea. 

No  water  is  so  blue  as  that  of  the  Bering.  It  is  of 
that  intense  azure  that  makes  the  wave-tips  seem  whiter 
than  on  other  seas,  and  it  lends  to  the  sky  an  extra  tint 
of  its  own  color. 

And  I  loved  the  dark  waters  of  the  night,  when  the 
phosphorescent  gleams  against  the  steamer's  side 
shone  out  against  the  white  foam,  and  the  moon-path 
lay  along  the  sea.  It  was  then  that  Yohara,  who  served 
as  a  pantry-boy  aboard  ship,  would  come  on  deck  by 
invitation  of  the  Doctor,  to  whom  he  owed  his  position, 
and  for  whom  he  served  as  porter  ashore.  The  little 
[101] 


The  Lure  o'  Gold 

Jap  would  sing  the  weirdest  songs  —  "night  poems," 
he  called  «them  —  greatl}  .to  the  entertainment  of  the 
passengers.  Dressed  in  his  native  garb,  he  would  do  a 
sort  of  grand  opera  performance  in  Japanese  all  by  him 
self,  flourishing  a  wooden  sword  which  he  would  pull 
out  and  thrust  into  his  belt,  clasping  the  handle  while 
he  recited  poems  which  he  afterward  interpreted  in  his 
queer  English. 

Those  first  days  of  the  voyage  were  calm  enough, 
and  I  should  greatly  have  enjoyed  the  being  abroad 
on  the  early  autumn  seas,  where  the  air  was  brisk  and 
not  cold,  and  where  no  hint  of  the  fogs  and  mists  that 
often  prevail  in  those  latitudes  obscured  the  vision 
which  could  reach  afar.  But  the  thoughts  of  my  lost 
treasure  and  of  how  to  recover  it  were  almost  constantly 
in  my  mind.  It  harried  me  sadly  to  think  that  nothing 
was  being  done  toward  the  positive  detection  of  the 
guilt  of  the  men  who  called  themselves  Somers  and 
Trust.  I  felt  like  going  to  Trust,  telling  him  that  I 
knew  his  real  name,  charging  him  with  having  stolen 
my  gold,  and  demanding  the  restoration  of  it.  But 
whenever  I  hinted  at  any  action  of  this  sort  to  the  Doc 
tor  he  was  ready  with  his  cool  caution  of  awaiting  the 
turn  of  events. 

[102] 


A  Heavy  Trunk 

I  paid  several  visits  to  the  steerage,  and  once,  when  I 
was  in  the  corner  by  the  bunk  of  Somers  and  Trust,  I 
observed  nobody  about.  The  two  worthies  had  doubt 
less  gone  on  deck,  and  the  coast  was  clear  for  an  in 
spection  of  their  luggage.  This  consisted  of  four 
pieces  —  three  satchels,  a  telescope  basket  and  a  small, 
trunk.  I  lifted  each  of  the  satchels  and  the  basket  to 
test  its  weight.  None  of  them  was  very  heavy.  Then 
I  looked  closely  at  the  trunk  in  the  dim  light.  It  was 
of  leather,  but  not  covered  with  canvas  as  such  trunks 
are  usually  encased.  Besides  the  ordinary  straps  it 
had  running  about  it,  crosswise  and  endwise,  a  small, 
strong  chain,  secured  by  a  heavy  brass  padlock.  This 
lock  was  in  addition  to  the  regular  trunk  lock,  which 
seemed  strong  enough  for  common  purposes.  On  one 
end  of  the  trunk  was  painted  in  black,  "  J.  R.  Trust, 
San  Francisco."  I  looked  at  the  lettering  carefully. 
Though  the  trunk  was  rather  an  old  one,  the  lettering 
seemed  strangely  new. 

If  this  strongly  fastened  and  evidently  precious  piece 
of  luggage  belonged  to  Pete  Slattery,  alias  "J.  R. 
Trust,"  it  certainly  had  not  been  long  in  his  possession. 
He  had  probably  purchased  it  just  before  leaving  Nome. 
One  question  burned  strongly  within  me:  Did  it  con- 
[103] 


The  Lure  o'  Gold 

tain  my  gold  ?  I  bent  over  the  trunk,  seized  it  by  the 
handle  nearest  me  and  was  about  to  test  its  weight  — 
in  fact,  I  did  give  a  stout  tug,  which,  however,  did  not 
raise  it  from  the  steerage  floor — when  I  heard  footsteps 
approaching  me,  and,  straightening  up  immediately, 
I  stared  into  the  faces  of  Messrs.  Trust  and  Somers. 

Always  the  more  nervous  of  the  two,  Somers  seemed 
harshly  to  resent  my  intrusion,  and  I  thought  that 
Trust's  one  eye  gleamed  with  momentary  malevolence, 
but  he  became  at  once  friendly  enough. 

"Oh,  it's  you,  Mr.  Morning!"  he  remarked  very 
blandly.  "Did  you  come  down  to  hear  that  poem  of 
mine  on  the  '  Humpbacked  Whale '  ?  I've  got  the  last 
verse  done,  you  know.  It  ain't  quite  so  comic  as  I 
thought  I'd  make  it.  In  fact,  it's  a  little  sad  towards 
the  end,  where  the  whale  loses  his  lady-love." 

"Read  it,"  said  I,  remembering  the  Doctor's  for 
bearance  under  a  similar  infliction,  and  calming  my 
self  as  best  I  could  in  my  flustered  state. 

He  read  the  miserable  doggerel,  at  the  end  of  which, 
seeing  that  something  was  expected  of  me  by  way  of 
appreciation  of  the  rhymes  which  he  had  ventured  to 
call  comic,  I  laughed,  though  I  could  not  have  told 
whether  the  thing  was  amusing  or  otherwise. 
[104] 


A  Heavy  Trunk 

"You  find  it  funny,  after  all,"  remarked  Trust. 
"Well,  perhaps  it  is.  Ah,  here's  Fishley." 

A  stubby,  sailor-looking  fellow,  with  a  singularly 
sour  face  and  greenish  eyes,  whom  I  had  had  pointed 
out  to  me  as  the  third  officer,  came  forward. 

"Mr.  Morning,"  said  Trust,  "let  me  introduce  my 
friend,  Mr.  Max  Fishley." 

The  third  mate  held  out  a  stumpy  paw,  on  the  wrist 
of  which  was  a  blue-and-red  lady,  with  long  hair,  prob 
ably  intended  for  a  mermaid. 

"Glad  to  know  you,  Mr.  Morning,"  he  said,  in  a 
voice  that  seemed  not  at  all  pleased. 

I  had  seen  Fishley  with  Trust  and  Somers  two  or 
three  times  before  on  the  forward  deck.  It  had  seemed 
to  me  that  they  had  become  very  friendly  on  short  ac 
quaintance,  though  that  is  nothing  remarkable  aboard 
a  steamer,  and  particularly  one  like  the  Modesto,  where 
there  appeared  to  be  a  certain  laxity  of  discipline,  which 
even  my  unaccustomed  eye  did  not  fail  to  detect. 

"  Want  to  hear  the  '  Humpbacked  Whale '  ?  "  asked 
the  poet  of  the  third  officer. 

"Yeh-ah,"  was  the  reply.  "It's  a  new  one,  ain't 
it?" 

"  Composed  last  night,"  said  the  poet,  musingly, 
[105] 


The  Lure  o9  Gold 

"while  I  was  tossing  on  the  bosom  of  the  deep  and 
wholly  unable  to  sleep." 

"  He  rhymes  nat'ral,  don't  he  ? "  said  Somers,  with 
evident  pride  in  his  friend's  poesy.  "Jest  as  nat'ral." 

Trust  read  the  verses  again.  At  the  conclusion  of 
the  reading  Max  Fishley  shook  his  head. 

"I  don't  like  them  sad  pieces,"  he  said.  "You 
oughter  make  it  end  different." 

"  There  you  are,"  said  the  poet.  "  One  laughs  and 
the  other  weeps.  That's  the  way  of  it.  You  never 
can  tell  how  poetry  will  affect  people." 

I  did  not  stay  long  in  the  steerage,  but  bustled  away 
to  tell  the  Doctor  what  I  had  learned.  I  was  disap 
pointed  when  I  heard  him  say: 

"Oh,  you  can't  tell  anything  about  that.  They  rig 
up  their  baggage  all  kinds  of  ways.  Trust  may  have 
bought  the  trunk  with  the  chain  on  it  from  some  poor, 
stranded  gold-seeker  who  had  taken  it  up  with  that 
rig,  thinking  to  bring  it  home  full  of  dust." 

"That  may  be,"  said  I,  "but  the  trunk  is  only  a 
small  one,  about  so  high,  and  it's  heavy  as  lead.  I  gave 
one  end  of  it  a  jerk  just  as  those  chaps  returned.  It's 
awfully  heavy." 

"  Is  that  so  ? "  said  the  Doctor,  changing  his  tune  a 
[106] 


A  Heavy  Trunk 

little.  "  Well,  of  course  there  might  be  gold  in  it ;  but 
you  only  lifted  one  end,  and  not  fairly  even  then.  So 
you  don't  know  as  to  the  weight  of  it.  A  well-packed 
trunk  is  a  deceitful  thing  when  it  comes  to  guessing  at 
its  weight.  This  one  may  be  filled  with  some  gaming 
machines  belonging  to  your  poet.  He's  a  gambler, 
you  know.  Or  may  be  some  of  the  other  man's  mining 
apparatus  is  in  it.  You  take  a  gold  retort,  and  scales 
and  pans  and  things  like  that,  and  they  weigh,  you 
know." 

"  But  couldn't  we  have  the  trunk  searched  ?  The 
Captain  could  order  it  done,  couldn't  he  ?  " 

"Yes,  if  there  was  any  charge  against  the  men,  I 
think  he  might,  though  I'm  not  certain.  We  ought  to 
be  a  little  surer  of  what  we  are  doing.  I'm  afraid  you're 
letting  your  suspicions  run  away  with  you." 

"  But  if  we  search  the  trunk  we  might  get  the  proof," 
I  insisted.  "  Nothing  could  be  better  proof  than  find 
ing  the  gold  there." 

The  Doctor  smiled. 

"Of   course,    said   he.     "Nothing   could   be   better 

proof.     But  I'm  sure  the  Captain  would  rather  wait 

until  we  get  to  San  Francisco.     Then  the  search  could 

be  made  officially  and  by  the  proper  authorities.     Still, 

[107] 


The  Lure  o'  Gold 

if  you  insist,  we'll  search  it.  I  know  a  way  that  it  could 
be  done  without  our  being  much  committed." 

"  Shall  we  do  it  right  away  ?  "  I  asked.  "  Don't  you 
think  it  would  be  better  to  search  it  right  away  ?  " 

"  Not  while  they're  down  there  watching  it,  for  sup 
pose  we  don't  find  any  gold  in  it.  That  would  be  a 
little  awkward.  Better  wait  our  chance.  You  hang 
around  in  the  steerage  as  much  as  you  can  and  watch 
them  and  the  trunk.  On  the  first  opportunity,  when 
they're  on  deck  and  out  of  the  way,  we'll  go  down  there 
with  Mr.  Nason,  the  first  officer,  and  I  guess  a  good 
big  bunch  of  keys  will  settle  the  question  of  what's  in 
that  trunk  in  short  order,  unless  the  lock  is  a  peculiar 
one.  But  I  shouldn't  like  to  break  it  open,  until  we 
know  a  little  more.  I  have  seen  the  folly  of  hasty 
actions  of  that  sort.  We  might  get  into  some  scrape. 
You  see,  when  it  comes  to  ransacking  other  people's 
property  the  same  rule  holds  good  on  the  sea  as  on  the 
land.  Better  be  a  little  cautious,  my  boy,  and  go 
slow." 

I  did  not  fancy  the  delay.  I  was  all  for  going  down 
and  seizing  upon  the  trunk  then  and  there,  but  I  con 
sented  to  the  Doctor's  plan,  and  watched  and  waited 
about.  But  Somers  and  Trust  did  not  seem  much  in- 

[108] 


A  Heavy  Trunk 

clined  to  take  the  air  together.  If  Trust  went  up  on 
deck,  Somers  stayed  below,  and  when  Somers  wanted 
to  relieve  his  nose  of  the  steerage  stinks,  Trust  would 
remain,  as  I  fancied,  on  watch. 

My  silent  comings  and  goings  in  the  poorly  lighted 
steerage  seemed  barely  to  be  observed  by  the  two  men. 
Sometimes  Somers,  when  he  caught  sight  of  me,  ap 
peared  a  bit  suspicious,  but  Trust  was  always  bland 
and  affable,  greeting  me  cordially.  Being  the  deeper 
rogue  of  the  two,  he  was,  as  I  saw  him,  better  capable 
of  dissembling  any  anxiety  he  might  have  felt  because 
of  my  visits.  I  came  to  understand  that,  if  I  were  to 
gain  anything  by  my  vigilance,  I  must  be  more  alert 
and  less  conspicuous. 


[109] 


XI 

THE  BULKHEAD  DOOR 

r 

So  one  evening,  after  I  had  paid  the  suspected  men  a 
visit,  I  bade  them  an  impressive  good-night  and  made 
rather  a  noisy  exit  from  the  corner  where  their  bunks 
were  situated.  Having  reached  the  middle  of  the  steer 
age,  I  took  off  my  shoes  and  slipped  quietly  back  to  a 
place  near  the  pirates'  corner  where  I  had  seen  an  empty 
berth.  Into  this  I  dropped,  pulling  the  bed-clothing 
closely  up  about  me,  not  without  some  natural  repug 
nance,  to  be  sure,  although  the  sheets  were  evidently 
clean  enough.  With  the  end  of  the  upper  sheet  pulled 
well  over  my  head,  I  could  lie  and  peep  out  toward  the 
place  where  Trust  and  Somers  were  quartered.  I 
could  hear  their  voices  droning  over  their  interminable 
cribbage,  and  could  smell  the  tobacco  smoke  as  it  was 
wafted  down  the  steerage. 

The  rolling  motion  of  the  old  Modesto  had  been  in 
creasing  for  some  hours,  and  I  could  hear  the  waves 
thumping  hard  along  her  bows.  Occasionally  there 

[110] 


The  Bulkhead  Door 

would  be  a  hard  swash,  and  in  the  intervals  the  wind 
piped  shrilly  up  above.  The  warm  air  down  below, 
with  the  buzzing  of  the  voices  and  the  heavy  roll  of  the 
vessel,  in  what  seemed  to  my  vague  and  lassid  sense  to 
be  a  gathering  storm,  must  have  had  a  drowsy  effect 
upon  me,  for  I  found  myself  fighting  sleep  as  I  had 
never  fought  it  before.  Remember,  I  had  had  many 
wakeful  nights  up  to  the  time  of  coming  aboard,  and 
even  yet  I  had  not  been  getting  more  than  half  of  my 
share  of  sleep. 

I  dozed,  and  awoke  to  the  sound  of  a  hearty  laugh 
from  somewhere  forward.  Then  there  came  the  wheezy 
notes  of  an  accordion.  Two  or  three  times  a  great 
swash,  harder  than  the  others,  would  break  through 
my  dozing  state,  and  I  would  start  up  and  look  back  at 
the  pirates'  corner  and  listen.  But  I  did  not  hear  any 
thing  but  the  whistling  of  the  rising  gale,  which,  strange 
to  say,  helped  me  back  to  slumber,  although  my  will 
was  all  against  it. 

I  must  have  slept  a  couple  of  hours  when  I  felt  a 
cold  draught  of  air  floating  over  my  bed.  Some  one 
down  the  aisle  of  bunks  sneezed,  and  there  came  a 
cough  or  two.  And  then  there  was  the  banging  of  a 
door  aft  and  the  draught  was  suddenly  shut  off. 

[in] 


The  Lure  o9  Gold 

I  got  out  of  my  berth  and  stole  back  to  the  corner  of 
Somers  and  Trust,  and  peered  about  in  the  half  dark 
ness,  but  could  not  see  or  hear  anything  of  them.  They 
were  not  there.  Again  I  heard  the  banging  of  the  door. 
This  was  an  unusual  sound,  and  could  come  from  but 
one  of  two  quarters  in  the  after  part  of  the  steerage. 
The  banging  must  have  been  caused  by  the  port  or 
starboard  bulkhead  door,  which  was  no  doubt  open. 
I  had  taken  careful  note  of  the  internal  arrangements 
of  the  steerage,  and  I  was  sure  my  conclusion  was  cor 
rect.  I  passed  to  the  nearer  of  the  two  doors,  the  one 
on  the  starboard  side,  which,  as  the  Doctor  had  told  me, 
led  into  one  of  the  steerage  wings.  As  I  neared  the 
door  I  could  hear  a  curious  hollow  sound,  which  I  had 
not  heard  before,  and  it  seemed  that  I  could  more  dis 
tinctly  note  the  effect  of  the  heavy  sea  upon  the  steamer. 

For  a  time  I  stood  and  listened  to  these  and  to  certain 
strange  sounds  coming  from  the  after  part  of  the  vessel. 
It  was  evident  to  me  that  some  one  had  opened  the 
door  to  the  steerage  wing  and  had  left  it  open,  and  that 
the  motion  of  the  ship  was  swinging  it  back  and  forth. 

I  struck  a  match,  and  saw  that  this  was  really  the 
case.  The  heavy  iron  door  of  the  bulkhead  at  the  end 
of  the  steerage  way  was  ajar,  the  dogs  and  bolts  having 
[112] 


The  Bulkhead  Door 

been  drawn,  and  the  big  padlocked  bar  that  I  had  often 
noticed  there  was  slipped  aside. 

I  had  been  curious  about  the  construction  of  the 
steamer,  and  the  Doctor,  who  was  quite  familiar  with 
such  matters,  had  told  me  much  about  her,  so  that  I 
knew  that  behind  that  bulkhead  door  was  the  wing  in 
which  were  the  coal  bunkers,  and  that  after  this  was 
the  main  freight-hold  between  decks. 

I  struck  another  match  and  glanced  about  at  the 
empty  berths  of  Somers  and  Trust.  I  looked  at  the 
trunk,  which  stood  near  by,  and,  as  it  no  doubt  still 
remained  locked,  I  peered  about  for  something  with 
which  I  might  smash  in  its  top  and  get  my  gold.  Luckily 
for  me,  as  it  chanced,  I  could  find  nothing  to  serve  as  a 
tool  for  that  purpose.  I  struck  match  after  match,  and 
looked  carefully  at  the  trunk.  One  detail  I  noticed — 
the  brass  chain  had  been  slipped  off  the  cover  and  was 
lying  to  one  side,  the  hasp  of  the  padlock  being  opened 
and  the  key  being  in  the  lock.  But  when  I  tried  to 
open  the  trunk  I  found  it  securely  fastened.  It  oc 
curred  to  me  to  lift  it  again,  and,  taking  hold  of  a  side 
handle,  I  raised  one  end  quite  easily.  Whatever  the 
weight  was  that  had  made  the  trunk  so  heavy  before, 
it  was  not  there  now. 

[113] 


The  Lure  o'  Gold 

In  that  moment  I  made  sure  in  my  own  mind  that  my 
gold  had  been  in  the  trunk  and  that  it  had  just  been  re 
moved.  If  not,  then  why  the  loosely  lying  chain  with 
its  open  padlock?  Why  the  midnight  movements  of 
the  men  from  the  deserted  berths  ?  Why  the  open  door 
of  the  steerage  wing  ? 

I  was  full  of  the  sensations  of  the  discovery  and  madly 
eager  to  ascertain  more  —  to  find  out  where  my  gold 
had  been  taken.  The  pirates,  I  was  satisfied,  had  re 
moved  the  gold  from  the  trunk  and  were  hiding  it  some 
where  aft,  either  in  the  steerage  wing  or  in  the  freight- 
hold  beyond. 

Not  recking  what  I  did  or  for  a  moment  fully  sensing 
the  fact  that  I  was  alone  and  unarmed,  I  tiptoed  quietly 
through  the  bulkhead  doorway,  and  along  the  dark, 
narrow  wing,  by  the  great  coal  bunkers,  pausing  from 
time  to  time  and  listening.  As  I  passed  aft  I  could 
hear  more  plainly  the  curious  noises  which  I  have 
spoken  of  before.  They  came  more  harshly  to  my 
ears,  but  were  as  mysterious  as  ever. 

I  found  that  the  door  at  the  after  end  of  the  long 

wing  was  closed,  but  soon  perceived  that  it  was  merely 

held  in  place  by  a  block  of  wood  on  the  other  side,  for 

the  bolts  and  dogs  were  all  drawn.     When  I  pushed 

[114] 


The  Bulkhead  Door 

upon  the  door  it  yielded  gently,  and  I  passed  into  the 
dark  and  chilly  air  of  the  great  empty  space  between 
decks,  blank  darkness  all  about  me.  It  seemed  to  me 
that  I  was  now  nearer  the  sea,  or  at  least  could  more 
distinctly  note  its  effect  upon  the  vessel.  As  the  ship 
rolled  violently  to  one  side,  I  heard  strange  swishing, 
crackling  and  crashing  sounds  proceeding  from  the 
after  part  of  the  vessel,  down  below  somewhere.  These 
sounds  were  so  loud,  so  strange  and  so  startling  as  to 
make  me  leap  in  fright  the  first  time  I  heard  them. 
When  the  ship  heaved  over  on  the  other  side  there  was 
a  repetition  of  the  racket  —  swis-s-s-s-h !  rus-s-s-sh ! 
crash-s-h !  —  mingled  with  a  low  roll  and  hubbub  that 
frightened  me  more  than  ever.  In  the  lulls  between 
these  uproarious  and  half-deafening  noises  I  heard 
certain  grating  sounds  coming  from  the  after  part  of 
the  vessel  down  below.  These  gratings  were  scarcely 
audible  above  the  fierce  swishes  and  crashes,  but  they 
finally  came  to  me  as  the  sound  of  a  saw.  The  order 
of  these  noises  came  at  last  to  be  almost  regular  in  suc 
cession:  First,  there  would  be  the  long-drawn  swish 
and  rush,  followed  by  the  violent  crash,  then  the  thin 
grating  of  the  saw,  which  would  be  drowned  by  the 
thudding  hubbub. 

[115] 


The  Lure  o9  Gold 

When  I  had,  to  a  certain  degree,  overcome  my  awe 
of  these  mysterious  sounds,  I  proceeded  very  cautiously, 
feeling  uncertain  of  my  ground.  Of  a  sudden  I  stood 
before  a  great,  softly  lighted  square  that  lay  along  the 
freight-deck.  I  crept  to  the  edge  of  the  square,  which 
I  knew  must  be  the  open  hatchway  running  down  to  the 
lower  hold.  I  got  down  on  my  hands  and  knees,  and 
looked  into  the  hold.  Away  aft  I  caught  the  flare  of  a 
candle-light,  but  when  I  gazed  strainedly  down  I  could 
see  nothing  that  might  have  immediate  reference  to 
human  life,  save  some  black  shadows.  These  I  watched 
until  I  saw  they  were  moving  along  toward  me,  with  the 
light.  I  rose  and  stood  shivering  in  the  damp,  cold 
place,  uncertain  what  to  do.  Then,  during  a  lull  in  the 
other  sounds,  I  heard  a  foot  strike  the  lower  round  of 
the  hatchway  ladder  and  a  deep  voice,  which  I  recog 
nized  as  that  of  Max  Fishley,  said : 

"Well,  it's  safe  enough  now.  Nobody  would  ever 
think  of  looking  for  it  there." 

"That's  right,"  I  heard  Trust  say,  "but  how  will  we 
take  it  ashore  when  we  get  into  port  ?  " 

"Oh,  leave  that  to  me,"  said  the  third  mate.  "I 
know  how  to  do  that  business  up  in  shape.  I've  smug 
gled  too  much  loot  ashore  to  be  bothered  with  a  job 
[116] 


The  Bulkhead  Door 

like  this.  It's  dead  easy.  Only  you  musn't  be  in  too 
big  a  hurry,  and  if  we  have  to  go  into  quarantine, 
why  - 

"  Quarantine  ?  " 

"Well,  you  never  can  tell." 

"  But  I'm  afraid  you'll  —  "  began  Somers,  and  the 
rest  I  did  not  hear,  for  a  terrible  grinding  noise  came 
from  the  after  part  of  the  steamer,  mingled  with  a  rip 
ping  whir.  This  ceased  suddenly. 

"Lord,  how  her  screw  is  racin'I"  said  the  third 
officer.  "It's  a  nasty  night.  There's  a  high  sea  run- 
nin'  an'  I  guess  Cap'n  will  want  me  on  deck.  The 
louty  old  porpoise  is  pilin'  on  the  watches  pretty  thick." 

I  heard  the  feet  on  the  ladder  rounds  again,  and 
dodged  back  through  the  bulkhead  door.  With  chat 
tering  teeth  I  ran  along  the  wing,  through  the  forward 
doorway  and  out  through  the  steerage  upon  deck.  I 
had  to  battle  with  a  stiff  wind,  which  nearly  knocked 
me  off  my  feet,  and  I  thanked  my  stars  that  my  ankle 
was  strong  enough  to  walk  upon,  though  it  was  still 
lame  and  a  bit  uncertain. 

When  I  reached  the  Doctor's  stateroom,  my  friend 
was  not  in.  I  looked  about  for  him  and  found  him 
with  the  Captain,  on  the  forward  deck  by  the  quarter- 
[117] 


The  Lure  o9  Gold 

master's  house.  My  impulse  was  to  run  up  to  them 
and  tell  them  both  of  my  discoveries  then  and  there  — 
to  say  that  I  suspected  that  my  gold  had  been  taken 
from  the  steerage  and  hidden  away  somewhere  in  the 
lower  hold,  and  to  charge  the  third  officer  with  com 
plicity  in  the  matter.  Of  course,  I  did  not  know  that 
these  were  the  facts,  but  I  could  not  rest  until  some 
thing  should  be  done.  I  wanted  the  trunk  broken  open 
at  once,  and  if  the  gold  were  not  in  it  —  of  which  I 
now  felt  positive  —  I  wanted  a  search  made  of  the 
lower  hold,  where  the  treasure  had  probably  been 
secreted. 

But  as  I  reached  the  spot  where  the  two  officers 
stood,  my  awe  of  the  Captain,  who  represented  to  me 
the  monarch  of  our  little  world  afloat,  reasserted  itself. 
I  probably  should  not  have  hesitated,  however,  had  it 
not  been  for  the  fact  that  he  seemed  in  deep  concern. 
He  would  put  up  his  night  glass  and  peer  anxiously 
forward  into  the  dun  masses  of  clouds  that  were  racing 
down  toward  us,  and  then  look  at  an  instrument  be 
fore  him  and  shake  his  head. 

"Is  it  going  to  be  much  of  a  storm?"  I  heard  the 
Doctor  ask  as  I  stood  near  at  hand,  but  as  wholly  unob 
served  as  if  I  did  not  exist  for  them. 

[118] 


The  Bulkhead  Door 

There  was  no  answer  for  a  while,  but  alternate  con 
templation  of  the  sky  and  of  the  instrument. 

"The  glass  is  falling  pretty  fast,"  the  Captain  said 
at  last,  as  if  speaking  to  himself,  "  and  I  don't  like  the 
looks  of  those  clouds.  There's  dirt  in  'em  or  I'm  a 
Dutchman.  I  wouldn't  care  so  much,  only  we  stand 
so  high,  without  any  freight  or  ballast,  and  we're  being 
driven  away  to  the  south  of  the  Aleutian  Islands." 

"Is  that  so?"  asked  the  Doctor,  anxiously.  "Then 
we  shan't  make  Dutch  Harbor  for  several  days." 

"  Not  for  a  week,  if  this  thing  keeps  up.  I  tell  you, 
Doc,  I  don't  like  it.  There's  dirt  in  that  black  mess 
out  there  —  the  rankest  kind  of  dirt.  You  know,  we're 
pretty  well  north  and  it  isn't  exactly  the  right  season 
for  it,  either,  but  we'll  be  in  the  biggest  kind  of  luck  if 
before  to-morrow  morning  we  ain't  bucking  a  typhoon." 

"  But  I  thought  —  "  began  the  Doctor. 

"  I  know  what  you  thought  —  that  typhoons  only 
blow  along  the  Chinese  coast.  That's  right.  But 
storms  get  misplaced  sometimes,  just  like  other  things; 
and  you  know  that  where  we  are  sailing  now,  away  south 
of  the  Aleutians,  and  driven  over  here  by  those  east 
winds,  we're  not  so  far  from  Chinese  waters  as  you 
think.  Of  course,  it  may  not  be  a  regular  typhoon, 
[119] 


The  Lure  o  Gold 

and  I  wouldn't  report  it  that  way,  because  those  smart 
Alecks  of  the  hydrographic  office  would  have  the  laugh 
on  me.  But  if  that  black  mess  out  there  ain't  a  typhoon 
it's  the  best  imitation  of  one  I  ever  saw.  Hold  on! 
I'm  going  to  get  Sing  up  here,  and  ask  him  what  he 
thinks  of  it." 

He  stepped  aside  and  called  down  a  pipe,  coming 
back  after  a  minute  to  say  to  the  Doctor: 

"The  trouble  about  these  storms  is  they  last  so  in 
fernally  long." 

"And  they're  hot  stuff,  too,"  said  the  Doctor.  "I'd 
hate  to  be  out  in  a  sailing  vessel  where  you  couldn't  do  a 
thing  but  lay  to  and  let  it  drive  at  you.  Do  you  remem 
ber  the  Albert  Dcane?  That  was  a  terror,  wasn't  it? 
She  lay  on  her  beam  ends  all  one  night  and  lost  half  her 
crew.  But  of  course  nothing  like  that  could  happen  to 
the  Modesto" 

Sing,  the  Chinese  cook,  came  on  deck,  his  loose 
white  blouse  and  trousers  ballooning  in  the  wind.  The 
Oriental  looked  the  picture  of  humility  in  the  presence 
of  the  master  of  the  Modesto. 

"Sing,"  said  Captain  Head,  pointing  to  the  dark 
moving  mass,  "  what  you  think  of  him  ?  You  sawe 
him?" 

[120] 


The  Bulkhead  Door 

"Oh,  him  tai-fung,"  said  the  Chinaman,  quickly, 
and  with  nervous  awe.  "  Him  no  good  —  makee  ship 
go  chop-chop.  Him  makee  tlee-piecee  stick  up  thaia," 
he  said,  pointing  to  the  foremast.  "  Habee  too  muchee 
plenty  watah  all  ova  deckee.  Velly  bad,  velly  bad ! " 

"All  right,  Sing;  you  can  go  down.  Now,  what  did 
I  tell  you  ?  "  said  the  Captain  to  the  Doctor.  "  But  of 
course  you  can't  report  it  that  way.  All  you've  got  to 
do  is  to  buck  through  it  and  get  out  alive,  if  you  can." 

"  But  the  old  Modesto  —  " 

"  Oh,  she's  stanch  enough  —  I  ain't  afraid  of  that. 
That  isn't  what  I'm  worrying  about,  though  she  would 
be  better  off  if  she  sat  snugger  into  the  water.  It's  the 
coal." 

"  What  about  the  coal  ? " 

"Jim  tells  me  there  ain't  enough,  even  of  screenings 
and  scrapings,  in  his  bunkers  to  run  her  four  days 
more." 

"Whew!"  whistled  the  Doctor.  "How  did  that 
happen  ?  " 

"  Well,  you  know  them  plaguey  old  owners  —  what 

drivers  they  are  —  they  thought  it  was  better  to  fill  her 

up  with  high-priced  freight  for  Nome,  and  take  chances, 

than  it  was  to  give  us  a  show  for  our  lives  with  a  few 

[121] 


The  Lure  o'  Gold 

more  tons  of  coal.  Thought  I  was  a  barnacled  old 
fool  because  I  suggested  that  we  leave  out  a  little  freight 
and  bring  up  something  to  run  her  with.  That's  the 
way  they  are.  They  think  that  it's  all  like  San  Fran 
cisco  Bay  up  here,  and  that  you  can  dodge  in  anywhere 
and  coal  up.  Wish  I  had  Densmore  and  a  couple 
more  of  'em  up  here,  facing  that !  "  He  pointed  toward 
the  "black  mess,"  as  he  called  it,  and  gave  a  curious 
laugh,  in  which  there  was  not  a  spark  of  mirth. 

The  Captain  aired  his  views  on  the  subject  of  owners 
while  the  wind  scudded  over  the  forward  house  and 
buzzed  in  the  stays,  making  noises  that  reminded  me 
of  the  sounds  proceeding  from  paper-covered  combs 
at  the  lips  of  stout-breathed  schoolboys. 

Glancing  about  of  a  sudden,  the  Doctor  spied  me, 
where  I  stood  to  the  leeward  of  a  big,  staring  ventilator, 
uncertain  of  my  right  to  break  into  this  serious  talk. 
Although  what  I  had  heard  about  the  storm  was  un 
pleasant  news,  it  did  not  destroy  the  scent  of  the  ama 
teur  sleuth,  and  I  was  all  for  speedy  action,  whether 
we  floated  or  sank. 

"Hullo,  John!"  said  the  Doctor,  "shouldn't  you  be 
in  your  berth  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  I  replied.     "  I  know  it's  late,  but  I  want  to 


The  Bulkhead  Door 

tell  you  something,  and  the  Captain  may  as  well  hear 
it,  too,  for  it  concerns  one  of  his  officers." 

I  told  them  what  I  had  seen  and  heard  between- 
decks. 

The  Captain  was  furious,  but  his  fury  had  no  refer 
ence  to  my  stolen  treasure. 

"  Bulkhead  doors  open ! "  he  raged,  "  and  in  this  gale ! 
By  the  great  horn  spoon,  I'd  like  to  know  who  did  that 
and  what  for!  As  if  there  wasn't  enough  to  think  of, 
with  a  big  storm  thickening  forward."  He  leaned  over 
and  touched  a  bell.  "I'll  see  what  Mr.  Fishley's  got 
to  say  about  this.  It's  enough  to  make  a  preacher 
curse.  Bulkhead  doors  open  at  all  hours  of  the  night 
and  in  a  sea  like  this!  " 

The  Doctor  called  me  away.  We  went  aft  to  the 
stateroom,  and  there  I  rehearsed  what  I  had  learned. 
He  was  deeply  interested,  though  I  could  see  he  was 
nervous  about  the  storm  and  the  other  troubles  aboard 
ship. 

"We'll  go  down  in  the  morning  and  have  a  look  at 
that  trunk,"  he  said.  "  Mr.  Nason  will  go  with  us  and 
we'll  have  his  authority  for  opening  it.  I'm  sorry  now 
that  we  didn't  search  it  before  and  all  the  rest  of  their 
baggage;  but  to  tell  you  the  plain  truth,  my  boy,  I 
[123] 


The  Lure  o9  Gold 

thought  your  suspicions  about  these  two  men  were  al 
together  too  strong,  considering  what  you  had  to  go 
upon.  And  nobody  ever  heard  of  such  a  thing  as  gold- 
robbers  in  a  steerage  anyway.  They  were  pretty  slick 
to  play  poverty,  and  cover  up  their  robbery  in  that  way." 

I  remarked,  with  some  satisfaction,  that  the  Captain 
seemed  to  be  rather  angry  about  what  his  third  officer 
had  done. 

"Yes,"  said  the  Doctor,  "but  I'm  afraid  that  that 
part  of  your  story  isn't  going  to  stick.  Fishley  will 
square  himself  with  the  Captain.  He's  a  pretty  smooth 
article,  is  Fishley.  Then,  too,  there  is  a  chance  of  your 
having  been  mistaken." 

"Oh,  yes,"  said  I,  "though  I  am  about  as  sure  of 
what  I  have  told  you  as  I  am  of  being  aboard  this 
ship." 

"  Aural  idiosyncrasies  are  something  that  have  to  be 
allowed  for,  you  know,"  was  the  reply.  "  There  were 
all  kinds  of  noises  down  in  that  hold,  according  to  your 
report." 

"Yes.  What  do  you  think  those  terrible  crashing 
and  smashing  sounds  were  down  there  ?  "  I  asked. 

"Let's  see,"  meditated  the  Doctor.  "What  could 
it  have  been  ?  "  He  thought  for  a  moment.  Then  his 
[124] 


The  Bulkhead  Door 

face  brightened  into  a  smile.     "Why,  I'll  bet  a  dollar 
it's  Stetson's  bottles." 

Stetson  was  the  purser,  but  I  had  not  heard  of  his 
bottles  before,  so  I  looked  inquiringly  at  the  Doctor. 

"  You  see,  Mr.  Stetson  thought  to  make  a  little  *  spec ' 
up  at  Nome.  Everything  is  high  there  except  empty 
glass.  He  had  a  chance  to  get  four  thousand  beer 
bottles  for  half  what  they're  worth  in  San  Francisco,  so 
he  bought  the  lot.  They  cost  him  about  eighty  dollars. 
It  wouldn't  pay  him  to  crate  them  at  the  prices  they 
were  charging  for  such  work,  so  he  just  had  them  laid 
down  in  the  lower  hold,  loose,  not  figuring  on  how  we'd 
roll  if  a  storm  came  up." 

"That  was  it,"  said  I.  "Breaking  beer  bottles, 
rolling  about  in  a  place  like  that,  would  have  made  pre 
cisely  the  sounds  I  heard." 

"I  guess  they've  all  gone  to  smash,"  laughed  the 
Doctor.  "  You  see,  my  boy,  the  folly  of  wild  specula 
tion.  The  purser  has  lost  his  eighty  dollars,  for  there 
won't  be  a  whole  bottle  left  when  we  get  through  this 
storm,  and  he  will  have  to  pay  extra  to  have  the  splin 
tered  glass  swept  and  taken  out  of  the  hold.  I  hope — 
he  began,  and  then  broke  off.  "  But  of  course  it's  all 
right." 

[125] 


The  Lure  o  Gold 

" What's  all  right?"  I  asked. 

"  Well,  you  see,  my  boy,  we've  got  a  dead  man  down 
below  in  that  same  hold,  and  I  don't  think  he's  stowed 
away  very  tight." 

"  A  dead  man  ?  "  said  I,  raising  my  eyebrows. 

"Yes." 

"I  didn't  know  about  that." 

"  Few  people  aboard  do  know  about  it.  He  and  the 
beer  bottles  are  every  ounce  of  freight  we've  got  aboard. 
I  hope  his  box  won't  get  broken  while  we  are  pitching 
about  so.  The  men  aboard  this  ship  —  I  mean  the 
crew  —  are  regular  cranks  for  superstition,  so  the  Cap 
tain  had  to  have  that  dead  box  made  big  and  square 
instead  of  long  and  narrow,  to  fool  'em.  He  smuggled 
it  aboard  as  reindeer  skins;  otherwise  those  foolish 
galoots  might  have  left  the  ship  at  Nome  —  every 
mother's  son  of  'em.  They  were  bitten  by  the  gold 
fever,  as  it  was,  and  some  of  'em  got  away,  but  we  made 
up  the  number  by  stranded  chaps  picked  up  on  the 
beach." 

"But  Nome  isn't  exporting  any  reindeer  skins,"  I 
said,  laughing.  "Wouldn't  the  crew  have  suspected 
the  deception  ?  " 

"  Not  they.  They're  a  little  dull  about  some  things, 
[126] 


The  Bulkhead  Door 

though  they're  bright  enough  when  it  comes  to  handling 
the  steamer.  But  if  that  box  should  break  open,  you 
couldn't  get  one  of  'em  to  touch  it  for  love  or  money." 

Under  ordinary  circumstances  I  should  have  dreamt 
of  the  dead  man  that  night,  and  should  have  shivered 
at  the  thought  of  him  tossing  about  in  the  empty  hold, 
with  the  beer  bottles  smashing  and  crashing  all  about 
him.  But  my  thoughts  were  all  of  the  gold,  and  of  the 
fact  —  for  it  seemed  to  me  assuredly  a  fact,  after  what 
I  had  seen  and  heard  —  that  my  precious  dust  was  hid 
den  away  down  in  the  depths  of  the  ship.  All  that  need 
be  done  now,  so  I  fancied,  was  to  make  a  careful 
search  for  it,  when  it  doubtless  would  be  unearthed 
and  brought  safely  upon  deck. 

I  planned  that  I  should  take  the  most  scrupulously 
watchful  care  of  it  this  time,  until  it  should  be  safely 
deposited  in  the  purser's  hands. 


[127] 


XII 


THE  "TAI-FUNG" 


THE  next  morning  we  were  in  the  teeth  of  the  "  tai- 
fung."  The  poor  Modesto,  with  so  much  of  her  great 
hulk  exposed  to  the  storm,  staggered  along  over  the 
seas  like  a  drunken  man.  She  heeled  over  from  side 
to  side,  drove  her  nose  into  the  watery  hills  that  piled 
up  before  her,  and,  with  her  stern  well  out  of  the  sea, 
she  strained  heavily,  while  her  screw  raced  like  a  wind 
mill  until  she  settled  down  again. 

The  racing  and  grinding  of  the  propeller  made  the 
Doctor  very  nervous  at  breakfast.  Each  time  he  heard 
the  sound  his  eyebrows  would  knit  darkly. 

"  I  don't  like  this  at  all,"  he  said  once,  when  the  shaft 
ground  so  harshly  that  the  Modesto  shivered  all  over 
like  a  wet  dog.  "  I  was  in  the  old  Rio  when  she  bucked 
a  typhoon  for  six  days  off  the  coast  of  China,  and  was 
blown  seven  hundred  miles  out  of  her  course.  Some 
times  I  thought  she  would  rack  her  engines  all  to  pieces. 
But  the  Modesto  is  a  clever  ship.  She'll  get  through 
[128] 


The  "  Tai-Fung  " 

where  any  of  'em  will  —  you  can  rest  assured  of  that." 

"  But  is  this  a  typhoon  ?  "  I  asked. 

"Of  course  not,"  said  the  Doctor.  "But,  as  the 
Captain  says,  it's  the  best  imitation  you  could  possibly 
find,  and  Sing  insists  that  it  is  a  'tai-fung,'  which  is  the 
same  thing.  I  hope  the  business  end  of  it  doesn't  strike 
us.  If  it  does  you  can't  tell  what  will  happen.  But 
the  Modesto  will  go  through  all  right.  You  needn't 
fear  for  her,  my  boy." 

Nevertheless,  I  knew  that  he  was  worried.  I  hated 
to  broach  the  question  of  searching  for  the  gold  just 
then,  but  he  thought  of  it  himself. 

"  Guess  we'd  better  get  Mr.  Nason  and  see  what  we 
can  do  about  finding  that  dust  of  yours,"  he  said, 
"though  it  isn't  the  best  time  in  the  world  to  go  ran 
sacking  a  ship." 

"  I  know,"  said  I,  "  that  the  officers  will  all  be  needed 
for  duty  now,  for  the  storm  is  on  pretty  heavy;  but  if 
one  of  them  could  possibly  spare  the  time  — 

"We'll  see,  we'll  see,"  promised  the  Doctor,  shortly. 
"  Great  Scott !  I  wish  that  old  propeller  wouldn't  grind 
so.  Come  along,  my  lad,"  he  said,  more  cheerfully, 
"and  we'll  see  where  that  gold  is.  It's  too  bad  we 
didn't  search  the  trunk  before  they  got  the  stuff  out 
[129] 


The  Lure  o9  Gold 

and  hid  it.  Perhaps  I  was  a  little  over-cautious.  You 
get  that  way  as  you  grow  older,  you  know.  I  took 
risks  enough  at  your  age." 

As  the  "  business  end "  of  the  storm  seemed  to  hold 
off  and  there  was  a  little  season  of  lull  in  the  lashing 
wind,  I  felt  less  backward  about  pressing  the  matter  of 
the  search,  and  so  we  finally  started  forth.  Mr.  Nason, 
the  first  officer,  could  spare  but  a  few  minutes,  he  said, 
to  go  with  us,  but  he  was  very  obliging.  We  passed 
forward  and  down  into  the  steerage,  where  the  frowzy 
passengers  were  being  racked  in  the  agonies  of  seasick 
ness  and  storm-panic,  and  passed  through  to  the  place 
I  have  alluded  to  as  the  pirates'  corner. 

The  effect  of  the  storm  was  visible  in  Somers'  face; 
the  pink  of  his  cheek  had  turned  to  an  ashy  grayness. 
Nor  was  the  cool  Mr.  Trust  any  too  full  of  assurance 
at  that  moment.  Both  men  evidently  shared  the  fright 
of  the  other  steerage  people. 

"Gentlemen,"  said  Mr.  Nason,  "I'll  trouble  you  to 
open  this  trunk." 

"Sir,"  said  Trust,  forgetting  his  fright  in  the  new 
excitement  of  this  pointed  demand  upon  him  and  his 
thievish  partner,  and  his  one  eye  giving  forth  a  malig 
nant  fire,  "sir,  you  have  no  right.  I  will  not  submit 
[130] 


The  "  Tai-Fung  " 

to  the  indignity,  for  that's  what  it  is,  and  you  know  it," 

''We'll  see  about  that,"  said  Mr.  Nason. 

"But  you  musn't  touch  it." 

"  Mustn't  I  ?  "  repeated  the  first  officer  in  a  tone  of 
contempt. 

"  No.    What  do  you  want  to  get  into  it  for,  anyway  ?  " 

"That's  my  business,"  said  the  officer,  curtly. 

"  But  you  have  no  right,"  insisted  Trust,  in  a  tone 
which  I  recognized  as  that  of  the  bluffer.  Looking  at 
him  closely,  I  could  hardly  believe  that  he  really  cared 
whether  his  trunk  was  opened  or  not.  But  he  must 
needs  make  this  righteous  fuss  about  it  for  reasons  of 
his  own.  "The  trunk  is  my  private  property." 

"What  of  that?"  said  the  officer.  "I  see  you've 
got  it  pretty  well  locked  up  —  with  all  this  chain  and 
things.  Hand  me  the  keys,  please." 

I  had  been  watching  Trust's  face,  but  now  I  looked 
at  the  trunk  and  saw  that  the  chain,  which  had  been 
taken  off  the  night  before,  was  securely  fastened  about 
the  trunk  again. 

"The  keys,  sir,"  demanded  Mr.  Nason,  stretching 
out  his  hand  to  Trust. 

"  I  don't  see  why  -  "  began  Trust. 

"  Well,  then,  I'll  tell  you  why,"  blurted  out  the  officer, 
[131] 


The  Lure  o  Gold 

angrily.  "You  are  suspected  of  robbing  this  young 
man  of  his  gold,  you  and  your  partner,  and  I  want  to 
see  if  you  haven't  it  in  your  baggage.  If  you  don't 
open  it  up  at  once  I'll  open  it  for  you."  He  held  up  a 
small,  keen-edged  hatchet.  "Come,  quick,  now!  I 
have  but  a  moment  to  spare.  Hand  'em  out ! " 

Trust  produced  a  bunch  of  keys,  and  fidgeted  with 
them  for  a  moment.  Finally  he  stooped  down,  un 
locked  the  trunk  and  opened  it  wide. 

"Look,  Mr.  Inspector,"  he  said.  "Search  all 
through.  You'll  find  no  gold  there." 

Mr.  Nason  threw  some  clothing  and  other  things  out 
of  the  trunk,  and  ransacked  it  thoroughly,  top  and 
bottom. 

"  No  gold  here,  gentlemen,"  he  said,  turning  to  the 
Doctor  and  me.  Then  he  commanded,  "  Let  the  rest 
of  the  baggage  be  opened."  Which  was  done,  without 
revealing  an  ounce  of  the  stolen  treasure. 

"  Now,"  said  I,  looking  straight  at  the  defiant  Trust, 
"  we  have  determined  that  the  gold  is  not  in  their  bag 
gage.  I  hardly  expected  to  find  any  of  it  here.  Sup 
pose  we  search  the  lower  hold,  where  I  am  confident 
they  have  hidden  it." 

Trust's  eye  fell  before  my  gaze,  and  the  poor  creature, 
[132] 


The  "  Tai-Fung  " 

already  unnerved  by  the  storm,  cowered  before  me; 
but  he  rallied  and  managed  to  bluff  out : 

"What  do  you  mean?" 

"I  mean,"  said  I,  "that  you  and  your  friend  there 
and  Mr.  Fishley  took  my  gold  from  the  trunk  last  night 
and  hid  it  away  in  the  lower  hold." 

"  Oh,  come,  Morning,"  said  Mr.  Nason,  with  fretful 
impatience,  "Fishley's  denied  that  he  ever  touched 
the  bulkhead  doors,  as  you  reported.  Besides,  he  was 
on  watch  and  couldn't  have  got  down  here,  even  for  five 
minutes.  You  are  mistaken,  really  mistaken." 

"  Then  he  deserted  his  watch,"  said  I,  emphatically, 
not  heeding  the  Doctor's  warning  glance,  "for  he  was 
here  and  the  bulkhead  door  was  open.  I  saw  it  and 
heard  him  and  these  men  in  the  lower  hold." 

"What  a  smart  youth!"  said  Trust,  regaining  con 
fidence  because  of  the  first  officer's  attitude  in  the  mat 
ter.  "What  have  you  been  eating  to  make  you  so 
bright  ?  Why,  Somers  and  I  turned  in  at  nine  o'clock 
last  night  and  weren't  out  of  our  bunks  until  this 
morning." 

"It  doesn't  sound  reasonable,"  said  Mr.  Nason, 
hastily,  "and  I  haven't  time  to  search  any  further 
for  your  gold,  anyway.  Besides,  I  wouldn't  open 
[133] 


The  Lure  o9  Gold 

those  bulkhead  doors  now  if  you'd  give  me  all  your 
treasure." 

A  terrible  blast  struck  the  Modesto,  and  there  was  a 
crashing  noise  up  on  deck  that  must  have  been  from  a 
great  wave  washing  over  her. 

"  Do  you  hear  that  ?  "  said  Mr.  Nason.  "  You  can't 
expect  me  to  be  opening  up  bulkheads  while  that's 
going  on." 

He  turned  quickly  and  walked  out  of  the  steerage, 
the  Doctor  and  I  following  him. 

"It's  no  use  thinking  about  the  treasure  now,"  ad 
vised  the  Doctor.     "  They  can't  do  anything  with  it  — 
to  hide  it  in  another  part  of  the  ship,  I  mean  —  until 
after  we're  out  of  this  storm." 

"When  do  you  think  that  will  be,  Doctor?"  I  asked. 

"  There's  no  telling.  If  we  get  sucked  into  the  storm 
center  we  may  be  carried  along  with  it  for  a  week.  But 
she'll  ride  it  all  right,  my  boy,  never  fear.  Only  I  wish 
we  had  some  cargo  aboard,  or  ballast,  or  something. 
Your  gold  down  in  the  hold  there  is  pretty  heavy,  but 
it  doesn't  seem  to  keep  us  steady;  and  the  broken  bot 
tles  and  the  dead  man  are  not  settling  us  very  deep  in 
the  water  either."  He  said  this  in  a  half -quizzical  way, 
and  I  wondered  if  he  really  accepted  and  believed  what 
[134] 


The  "  Tai-Fung  " 

I  had  said  about  Fishley  and  the  two  other  gold-thieves, 
or  was  only  humoring  me  as  he  would  any  poor  creature 
whose  mind  was  affected  by  the  loss  of  his  fortune.  I 
had  counted  all  along  upon  the  Doctor's  friendship  and 
good-will.  Was  I  about  to  lose  them  when  it  came  to 
the  pinch?  Just  at  that  moment  there  seemed  to  be 
nobody  in  the  ship  who  really  sympathized  with  me, 
after  all.  In  a  gloomy,  depressed  mood  I  walked  away 
to  the  steward's  room,  where  I  sat  for  an  hour  or  two, 
trying  to  fix  my  mind  upon  a  story  in  a  magazine,  but 
tormented  out  of  all  appreciation  for  the  tale  because 
of  the  blasts  and  swashes  with  which  the  storm  was 
punishing  the  old  Modesto  for  her  temerity  in  venturing 
out  upon  the  open  sea  so  poorly  equipped  for  buffeting 
wind  and  wave. 

As  the  gale  cut  in  over  the  white  wave-tips  and  the 
ship  heeled  over  under  the  tremendous  pressure,  a 
sound  would  go  up  as  of  a  wail  amid  all  the  roaring  and 
humming.  Then  there  would  be  a  great  shock,  as  a  wall 
of  water  would  heave  itself  against  the  side,  together 
with  a  tremendous  shiver  and  a  sound  of  rattling  stays. 
In  the  intervals  between  blasts,  the  rain  fell  in  great 
pelting  swirls. 

So  far  as  any  independent  motion  was  concerned 
[135] 


The  Lure  o'  Gold 

the  steamer  seemed  to  have  none  whatever,  being  tossed 
about  by  the  will  of  the  storm  and  sent  scudding  here 
and  there.  It  seemed  to  me  that  in  the  course  of  an 
hour  we  would  change  our  direction  half  a  dozen  times. 
When  I  spoke  of  this  to  the  Doctor,  while  we  braved 
the  storm  on  the  deck  for  a  little  while,  he  smiled  and 
said: 

"  It  seems  that  way,  doesn't  it  ?  But  we're  driving 
southwest  as  fast  as  the  gale  can  carry  us.  We  can't 
steam  worth  a  cent  in  all  this  weather.  The  changing 
directions,  as  they  seem  to  you,  are  due  merely  to  our 
heading  up  against  the  wind  now  and  again  when  it 
blows  a  bit  too  stiff.  We  shouldn't  have  to  do  that  if 
we  sat  down  farther  in  the  water,  but  as  it  is  —  " 

The  wind  blew  the  rest  of  his  words  away,  and  we 
scurried  back  to  our  stateroom. 

For  three  days  the  "  tai-fung  "  toyed  with  the  Modesto. 
Once  or  twice  she  seemed  ready  to  give  up  the  struggle 
and  sink  to  the  more  peaceful  lower  waters.  But  she 
rode  out  the  storm  on  the  fourth  day  and  the  wind 
quieted  down.  The  sea  was  still  running  high,  but  it 
was  now  flecked  by  patches  of  bright  sunshine.  The 
air  was  warm  and  had  a  soft  feel  in  it.  We  had  been 
blown  away  down  the  North  Pacific  and  hundreds  of 
[136] 


The  "  Tai-Fung  " 

miles  out  of  our  course,  but  the  passengers  who  came 
smiling  up  on  deck  seemed  happy  in  the  consciousness 
of  having  outlived  the  storm. 

The  Doctor  and  I  were  standing  on  the  forward  deck, 
'and  I  was  urging  upon  him  that  we  should  go  below 
and  search  the  hold  for  the  treasure,  when  of  a  sudden 
Mr.  Nason,  who  was  standing  by  with  his  glass  to  his 
eyes,  said  quietly  to  the  Doctor: 

"  Have  you  seen  that  craft  out  yonder  yet  ?  I  picked 
her  up  right  after  luncheon,  and  the  Captain  and  I  have 
been  watching  her  for  an  hour.  Seems  like  some  der 
elict.  I  don't  exactly  understand  her." 


[137] 


XIII 
WRECK  OF  THE  "FLYING  MIST" 

r 

I  LOOKED  to  the  westward,  where  Mr.  Nason  pointed, 
and  saw  a  small  black  craft  about  half  a  mile  away. 
Her  decks  were  all  raked  clean  save  for  a  tall,  bare  stick 
of  a  mast. 

"When  I  first  picked  her  up,"  said  the  officer,  "I 
thought  I  saw  a  puff  of  smoke  above  the  top  of  that 
mast,  but  I  haven't  made  out  anything  of  the  sort  since. 
I  could  hardly  believe  my  eyes  at  the  first,  and  the  Cap 
tain  scoffed  at  the  idea,  but  when  he  looked  sharply 
he  saw  it,  too." 

"  Why,"  said  I,  "  she  must  be  the  Flying  Mist.  " 

"  That's  what  she  is,"  affirmed  the  Doctor,  speaking 
to  Mr.  Nason.  "  Didn't  you  see  a  strange  craft  with  a 
funnel  mast  —  a  steam  schooner  or  something  of  that 
sort  —  lying  up  there  off  the  Nome  coast  ?  " 

"I  didn't  notice  her,"  said  the  first  officer,  "or,  at 
least  if  I  did,  I  didn't  see  that  she  had  a  funnel  for  a 
mast.  So  that's  the  Flying  Mist  ?  I've  heard  of  her 
[138] 


Wreck  of  the  Flying  Mist 

—  the  Flying  Mist.  Well,  she  doesn't  look  as  though 
she'd  fly  much  farther.  She's  all  logged  down,  and  I 
suppose  the  fires  are  out  of  her  furnaces  by  this  time." 

"  You  don't  mean  that  she's  sinking  ?  "  I  cried. 

"  But  she  is,  though,  and  her  crew  must  have  deserted 
her  early  this  morning  after  the  wind  went  down.  I 
guess  their  chances  were  about  as  good  aboard  her  as 
they  were  in  the  boats.  Hold  on !  I  think  I  see  signs 
of  life  on  board.  Yes,  there's  a  couple  of  chaps  there 
forward  of  the  house,  and  they're  hailing  us!" 

By  shading  my  eyes  with  my  hands,  I  could  make  out 
two  dark  figures  that  seemed  to  have  just  come  upon 
deck.  One  of  them  was  waving  something  white. 

"  That  big  fellow  looks  as  though  he  could  take  care 
of  himself,"  said  Mr.  Nason,  screwing  down  his  glass. 
"But  the  other  I  don't  make  much  of.  Seems  weak 
and  limp.  Mr.  Fishley,  get  a  boat  ready  there." 

A  boat  was  swung  from  the  davits. 

"I  think,"  said  the  Captain,  coming  up,  "that  we'll 
steam  down  a  little  nearer.  We  can  keep  to  the  lee 
ward  of  her  and  take  'em  off  easier.  It  isn't  quite  the 
kind  of  sea  I  like  to  send  out  small  boats  in." 

We  headed  down  to  leeward  of  the  Flying  Mist, 
where  she  lay  with  the  waves  washing  her  decks,  but 
[139] 


The  Lure  o9  Gold 

before  we  got  near  enough  to  take  the  men  off  we  saw 
the  little  craft's  bow  rise  in  the  water,  her  stern  settling 
rapidly,  and  down  she  went,  her  bowsprit  showing  for  a 
moment  above  the  waves  and  then  disappearing  from 
sight,  leaving  nothing  but  the  blank,  open  sea  where  the 
little  schooner  had  been  so  gallantly  fighting  for  her  life. 

I  shuddered,  and  I  saw  the  Doctor  shudder,  too,  as 
he  gasped: 

"My  God!     She's  gone!" 

A  few  pieces  of  wreckage  now  appeared  on  the  sur 
face,  and  clinging  to  one  of  these  I  saw  a  man.  I 
clutched  the  first  officer's  arm  and  called  out  excitedly: 

"  See  him  —  see  him !     Can't  we  save  him  ?  " 

"We'll  try,  my  lad,"  said  he,  coolly,  to  my  mind  not 
nearly  so  much  affected  by  the  sight  of  the  struggling 
man  as  he  should  have  been.  "Lower  that  boat, 
Max." 

"  Lower  away ! "  I  heard  Fishley  call  to  his  men.  He 
was  sitting  in  the  stern  of  the  little  craft  himself  and  had 
four  brawny  fellows  to  man  the  oars.  Little  as  I  had 
reason  to  like  the  third  officer,  I  could  not,  in  spite  of 
myself,  help  admiring  him  as  he  sat  there,  swinging 
down  to  the  surging  waves  which  would  have  daunted 
the  heart  of  many  a  hardy  seaman.  Soon  the  boat  was 
[140] 


Wreck  of  the  Flying  Mist 

tossing  upon  the  rough  sea,  so  that  more  than  once  the 
oarsmen  fanned  the  air  with  their  blades,  while  the 
spray  dashed  over  them.  But  in  a  few  minutes  they 
had  rowed  to  the  side  of  the  man,  who  clung  to  the 
wreckage,  and  had  made  fast.  After  repeated 
pullings  and  haulings,  they  managed  to  get  him  into 
the  boat,  where  he  lay  flat  after  his  struggle  with  the 
waves. 

When  the  boat  was  pulled  up  and  the  rescued  man 
was  taken  in  over  the  side,  I  stood  near  at  hand,  and  it 
so  chanced  that  Somers  and  Trust,  who  were  also  near, 
were,  with  me,  among  the  first  to  see  the  rescued  man's 
face.     All  three  of  us  stared  very  hard,  and  I  heard 
Somers  smother  a  groan  while  he  said  under  his  breath : 
"  Gee,  Pete !     What  d'ye  think  o'  that  ?  " 
"Oh,  it  can't  be!"  said  Trust.     "Yes,  it  is,  too!" 
"  Yes,"  I  repeated,  "  and  you  thought  you  were  well 
rid  of  him,  didn't  you,  after  you  fooled  him  by  sending 
him  to  wait  for  you  and  the  gold  aboard  the  Flying 
Mist?" 

For  the  rescued  man,  who,  so  far  as  we  knew,  was 
the  only  survivor  of  the  wreck,  was  none  other  than 
Bill  of  the  lighter  —  the  rascal  who  had  pushed  my 
gold  overboard. 

[141] 


The  Lure  o9  Gold 

"  What  are  you  fellows  doing  here  abaft  the  steerage 
sign  ?  "  gruff ed  the  Captain  to  Somers  and  Trust.  "  Get 
back  where  you  belong.  We  want  room  here.  Doc 
tor,  will  you  tend  to  this  man  ?  Fix  him  up  if  there's 
anything  the  matter  with  him." 

The  Doctor  had  Bill  taken  into  an  empty  stateroom, 
where  he  cared  for  him.  Bill  soon  revived,  and  told 
the  story  of  the  wreck.  He  said  that  when  the  great 
gale  struck  the  Flying  Mist  she  strained  badly,  and,  the 
caulking  being  old,  some  of  the  seams  near  her  stern 
opened,  making  a  nasty  leak.  The  pumps  were  kept 
going,  but  the  schooner  made  water  from  hour  to  hour, 
and  all  through  the  terrible  storm,  while  masts  were 
falling  and  rigging  was  littering  the  deck,  the  vessel 
kept  settling,  little  by  little.  After  the  storm  had  abated 
the  men  aboard  feared  the  danger  of  the  ship  going 
under  at  any  moment.  Some  of  the  passengers  were 
wild  with  panic.  To  make  matters  worse,  Captain 
Transome  took  to  his  liquor  so  heavily  that  he  seemed 
hardly  to  know  whether  he  was  afloat  or  ashore.  The 
first  mate  was  very  nervous,  and  kept  constantly  urging 
that  every  one  should  take  to  the  boats.  Bill,  being  an 
old  sailor,  did  not  like  the  prospect  of  such  a  course, 
and  tried  to  dissuade  the  mate  from  his  evident  inten- 
[142] 


Wreck  of  the  Flying  Mist 

tion,  which  was  to  lower  the  boats  at  once  and  not  wait 
for  the  storm  to  further  abate. 

"It  was  the  worst  kind  of  craziness,"  said  Bill,  re 
flectively,  as  if  he  still  saw  the  tragic  situation.  "The 
first  boat  they  lowered  was  swamped,  and  the  dozen  o* 
men  in  her  was  soon  a-throwin'  up  their  hands  an'  a- 
grabbin'  at  things  that  wasn't  there  to  grab  at.  Every 
man  of  'em  was  lost.  But  that  fool  mate  got  the 
drunken  Captain  an'  the  rest  o'  the  passengers  into  the 
next  boat  —  that  is,  all  except  me  an'  a  sick  feller  that 
got  overlooked  somehow  down  below.  I  wouldn't  go 
in  her,  an'  told  'em  they  was  idiots  for  tryin'  it ;  but  they 
pulled  away,  an'  I  bet  a  dollar  they're  safe  at  the  bottom 
now. 

"  It  was  three  hours  before  the  Modesto  hove  in  sight. 
I  thought  the  schooner  would  stay  afloat  a  couple  o' 
hours  longer,  an'  I  was  at  work  makin'  a  raft  when  the 
steamer  came  along.  But  gee !  the  old  thing  went  down 
all  of  a  sudden.  Never  see  anything  to  beat  the  way 
she  dove  under.  I  was  sucked  down  with  her,  an'  I 
jest  give  myself  up  for  a  goner  when  I  begun  to  rise. 
As  soon  as  I  got  my  snoot  above  water  I  grabbed  a 
stick  of  something  —  I  don't  know  what  it  was  —  and 
then  the  boat  came  out  and  picked  me  up.  But  you'll 
[143] 


The  Lure  o  Gold 

never  see  that  drunk  Captain  an'  the  other  fellers  in 
that  boat  —  they're  gone,  as  sure  as  guns." 

"No  doubt  of  it,"  said  the  Doctor.  "How  do  you 
feel  now  ?  " 

"A  little  better,  but  not  much  good  yet,"  sighed  Bill, 
wearily.  "I  got  knocked  in  the  head  somehow  when 
we  went  down  —  right  there." 

The  Doctor  examined  a  great  purple  bump  behind 
Bill's  ear. 

"  Oh,  that'll  be  all  right  in  a  few  days,"  he  said,  re 
assuringly.  "I'll  bandage  it." 

He  bound  up  the  man's  head,  the  patient  inconsid 
erately  trying  for  a  moment  to  fight  him  off.  Then  the 
Doctor  said: 

"Keep  quiet  here  now,  and  I'll  send  you  in  some 
broth  in  about  half  an  hour." 

During  the  entire  recital  of  Bill's  tragic  story  I  had 
kept  in  the  background,  and  he  had  not  observed  me. 
He  seemed  to  be  suffering  much  pain,  and  kept  his  eyes 
closed  most  of  the  time.  I  was  glad  that  he  had  not 
seen  me,  for  I  might  the  better  plan  what  should  be 
done  regarding  him.  I  was  determined  he  should  not 
escape  punishment  for  his  crime  in  despoiling  me  of 
my  gold. 

[144] 


Wreck  of  the  Flying  Mist 

I  went  about  that  day  feeling  rather  light  and  glad 
some.  For  whatever  other  misfortunes  had  befallen 
me,  I  was  in  a  position  to  rejoice  that  I  had  not  taken 
passage  in  the  Flying  Mist. 

When  I  told  the  Doctor  who  the  rescued  man  was, 
and  how  much  concerned  Trust  and  Somers  were  when 
they  saw  him  hauled  aboard,  he  was  greatly  interested. 

"This  means  trouble,"  said  he  —  "trouble  for  those 
steerage  pirates,  and  possibly  trouble  for  us.  It's  a 
mighty  curious  thing  that  they  should  all  get  together 
here  on  the  Modesto  —  all  the  men  that  were  in  the  con 
spiracy  against  you." 

"This  man  Bill,"  said  I,  "can't  he  be  arrested  as 
soon  as  his  head  is  well  again  ?  " 

"  Certainly.  I'll  see  that  he  doesn't  escape  when  we 
reach  port." 

"  Don't  you  think,  Doctor,  that  we  should  be  search 
ing  the  lower  hold  ?  We  ought  to  be  able  to  find  the 
gold  down  there  somewhere.  I  am  confident  that  it 
was  hidden  there  by  those  robbers,  working  in  collusion 
with  Max  Fishley." 

"  You  may  be  right  about  Max  being  in  with  them," 
said  the  Doctor.  "  I  never  had  much  use  for  him  and 
his  green  eyes.  But  it  does  seem  almost  past  belief 
[145] 


The  Lure  o  Gold 

that  a  trusted  officer  of  a  ship  like  the  Modesto  should 
be  up  to  such  infernal  doings.  I  suppose  these  things 
begin  with  smuggling  and  gradually  lead  up  to  robbery." 

"  Can't  we  get  started  on  our  search  in  the  hold  ? " 
I  asked,  impatiently. 

"Now  the  way  to  do  that,"  planned  the  Doctor,  "is 
to  go  to  the  Captain,  lay  the  whole  matter  before  him, 
and  get  him  to  detail  three  or  four  men  under  Mr. 
Nason.  Then  we  can  go  down  with  some  chance. 
Otherwise,  if  the  gold  is  hidden  in  the  hold,  as  you 
think,  those  fellows  and  Fishley  —  if  he  is  really  in 
with  them  —  will  not  hesitate  to  give  us  a  side  dig  with 
a  knife,  if  they  are  lurking  about.  Down  in  a  dark 
hold  with  a  cutthroat  like  that  one-eyed  rascal  is  not 
the  kind  of  place  I  am  seeking,  unless  I'm  well  rein 
forced." 

"  Of  course,  you  know  best,"  said  I.  "  But  can't  we 
get  started  ?  " 

"  And  I  have  feared  for  you  and  kept  something  of  a 
watch  on  their  actions,"  he  went  on.  "You  ought  to 
be  very  careful  about  being  in  any  place  alone  with 
them.  They  might  easily  tumble  you  overboard  some 
dark  night." 

The  last  words  came  from  the  Doctor  without  any 
[146] 


Wreck  of  the  Flying  Mist 

reference  to  what  I  had  just  said.  They  were  not  re 
assuring  words,  but  I  thanked  him  for  the  warning,  and 
told  him  that  it  should  not  be  thrown  away  upon  me. 
Then  I  asked  him  if  we  could  not  go  to  the  Captain  at 
once. 

"  No,"  was  the  reply.  "  He's  asleep  just  now  —  so 
Nason  just  told  me  —  trying  to  make  up  a  little  of  what 
he  lost  these  past  few  nights,  I  guess.  It  was  a  terror, 
that  storm.  I  was  never  in  one  that  knocked  a  ship 
about  so.  Let  him  sleep.  He  deserves  it." 

I  made  several  suggestions  that  might  aid  in  a  solu 
tion  of  the  matter  without  the  help  of  the  Captain,  as  I 
did  not  wish  to  wait  until  he  should  waken.  I  fretted 
under  the  loss  of  time,  and  even  went  so  far  as  to  risk 
the  Doctor's  displeasure  by  going  to  Mr.  Nason  and 
asking  him  if  he  would  not  let  us  have  the  men  to  go 
along  and  make  the  search  of  the  hold. 

"No,"  said  he,  very  shortly.  "I  can't  do  it.  The 
Captain  wouldn't  like  it  without  being  consulted;  and, 
my  boy,  if  you  want  to  know  my  opinion  of  this  affair 
of  your  little  bag  of  dust,  I  must  say  that  it  has  caused 
me  trouble  enough  already.  Mr.  Fishley  has  —  but 
you  don't  have  to  know  everything  that  passes  between 
officers.  If  the  Captain  says  that  such  a  search  must 
[147] 


The  Lure  o  Gold 

be  made,  why  of  course  it's  all  right;  but  I  hope  you 
understand  now  how  I  feel  about  it." 

"  Well,"  said  I,  very  respectfully,  though  I  was  not  a 
little  wroth  because  of  what  he  had  seen  fit  to  say, 
"you  know  your  duty  of  course,  sir;  but  about  the  gold: 
It  isn't  a  little  sack  —  it's  eight  sacks,  and  they  contain 
over  forty  thousand  dollars." 

"  That  may  be  or  may  not  be,"  said  the  ruffled  officer. 
"It  seems  likely,  doesn't  it,  that  a  mere  boy  like  you 
should  have  all  that  gold  in  his  care  ?  I  know  Doctor 
Quaritch  says  it's  all  right;  but  he's  a  good-natured, 
easy-going  man,  who's  not  hard  to  take  in." 

I  walked  away  with  rising  heat.  It  was  an  hour 
before  I  was  cool  enough  to  contemplate  the  situation 
calmly.  I  thought  vaguely  of  going  to  the  second 
officer,  Mr.  Lovell,  and  enlisting  his  aid.  But  it  oc 
curred  to  me  that  I  should  be  getting  things  mixed  up 
worse  than  they  were.  It  was  plain  that  Mr.  Nason 
had  been  listening  to  Max  Fishley,  and  that  officer  had 
convinced  him  that  my  pretensions  concerning  the  gold 
were  all  false.  It  was  evident  that,  while  matters  were 
run  rather  loosely  aboard  the  Modesto,,  there  was  suffi 
cient  harmony  among  the  officers  not  to  make  them 
very  suspicious  of  one  another's  actions.  I  could  do 
[148] 


Wreck  of  the  Flying  Mist 

nothing  about  the  gold  just  then;  so  I  went  down  into 
the  saloon  and  talked  with  Yohara.  He  was  full  of 
the  unhappy  incident  of  the  wreck,  and  asked  ques 
tion  after  question,  some  of  which  were  difficult  to 
answer. 

The  Captain  woke  about  noon  and  ate  his  breakfast, 
after  which  the  Doctor  and  I  went  to  his  cabin.  The 
Doctor  did  not  immediately  begin  upon  the  subject  of 
the  search  for  the  treasure,  preferring  to  lead  up  to  it 
in  a  quiet,  politic  manner.  He  spoke  of  the  weather, 
and  remarked  upon  the  smoothness  of  the  sea,  which 
had  calmed  wonderfully  in  the  past  few  hours. 

"  Oh,  the  sea's  all  right,"  said  the  Captain,  with  fur 
rowed  forehead,  "  and  the  wind's  all  right,  but  I'll  be 
jinged  if  I  know  how  we're  going  to  make  San  Fran 
cisco  with  only  one  day's  coal.  You're  pretty  wise, 
Doctor,"  he  went  on,  with  a  little  satire  in  his  tone, 
"and  may  be  you  can  solve  that  problem." 

"I  confess  it  beats  me,"  owned  the  Doctor,  "but  let 
us  hope  we  shall  have  the  good  luck  to  fall  in  with  some 
steamer." 

"  Yes,  and  be  towed  in  for  salvage,  and  have  to  pay 
all  she's  worth  to  some  pirate  with  a  strict  eye  to  busi 
ness.  What  would  the  owners  say  to  that  ?  No,  siree- 
[149] 


The  Lure  o'  Gold 

bob !  She's  got  to  work  in  some  way.  If  we  had  coal, 
we  could  make  port  in  five  days  easy  enough.  We  are 
only  about  seventeen  hundred  miles  out." 

"Wouldn't  Seattle  be  quicker  to  make  than  San 
Francisco  ?  " 

"Oh,  we  could  get  coal  at  Victoria  before  Seattle; 
but  do  you  know  where  we  are?  That  infernal  'tai- 
fung,'  as  Sing  calls  it,  has  blown  us  away  down  the 
Pacific.  Honolulu  or  San  Francisco  is  about  a  stand 
off  just  now;  and  I  prefer  San  Francisco.  You  know 
we're  chartered  for  that  Philippine  trip  and  must  be  in 
port  by  the  first  of  the  month.  This  is  the  22d.  Eight 
days  are  all  the  time  we've  got." 

"  Well,  Captain,  I'm  awfully  sorry,  and  I  know  you 
don't  like  to  be  bothered  about  such  matters  just  now, 
but  I  wish  you  would  let  three  men  go  down  in  the 
hold  with  us  and  Mr.  Nason,  and  find  this  young  man's 
gold." 

"  Oh,  wait  till  you  get  to  port,  whenever  that'll  be," 
said  the  Captain,  in  the  worst  humor  I  had  ever  seen 
him  display.  "If  the  gold's  down  there,  it'll  keep. 
There's  no  use  bothering  about  it.  There's  nothing 
in  the  hold  but  a  lot  of  busted  beer  bottles,  a  dead  man, 
and  maybe  a  little  dunnage.  And  that  yarn  about 
[150] 


Wreck  of  the  Flying  Mist 

Fishley.  Say,  young  man,  did  you  see  him  down 
there?" 

He  turned  upon  me  suddenly  and  crossly,  and  my 
eyes  fell  before  his  angry  gaze. 

"No,"  I  began,  "but—  " 

"  Of  course  you  didn't  —  I  knew  you  didn't." 

"  Captain,"  interposed  the  Doctor,  "this  boy's  father 
is  a  friend  of  mine,  and  he  has  lost  his  gold.  It  has 
been  stolen  from  him  and  secreted  aboard  your  vessel. 
It  seems  to  me  — 

"Oh,  Doctor!"  groaned  the  Captain,  "haven't  I  got 
enough  troubles  of  my  own  without  all  this?  Wait 
until  we  get  to  port." 

"  But  I  feel  responsible  to  this  young  man's  father." 

"  Can't  help  that.     Go  'way  and  let  me  alone!" 

The  Doctor's  face  fell  as  this  rude  speech  was  uttered. 

"I'm  sorry  I  bothered  you,"  he  said. 

"So  am  I,"  was  the  short  rejoinder. 

We  turned  and  slowly  left  the  cabin.  When  we  were 
just  abaft  of  the  mainmast  we  heard  a  gruff  call : 

"  All  right,  Doctor !     Tell  Nason  I  say  it's  all  right » " 


[151] 


XIV 

SEARCHING  FOR  THE  TREASURE 

r 

FROM  despondency  I  was  quickly  uplifted  to  joy. 
It  was  clear  that  Captain  Head  was  not  such  a  dis 
obliging  commander  after  all. 

"  Oh,  he's  all  right,"  said  the  Doctor.  "  He  means 
to  be  agreeable,  but  he's  terribly  worried  just  now  about 
the  fix  he's  in  over  the  coal.  I  don't  see  how  he's  going 
to  get  out  of  it,  myself;  but  he's  an  awfully  lucky  mar 
iner,  and  something  will  no  doubt  happen  to  straighten 
things  out  for  him." 

Mr.  Nason  was  not  pleased  at  the  idea  of  the  search, 
but  he  went  along  readily  enough.  It  came  to  me  that 
what  had  ailed  him  before  was  a  part  of  the  Captain's 
complaint  —  the  anxiety  over  the  shortage  of  coal  and 
the  uncertainty  about  reaching  port.  In  fact,  the  situa 
tion  was  made  quite  plain  to  me  by  what  the  first  officer 
said  in  reply  to  a  question  from  Doctor  Quaritch  about 
the  matter  of  the  charter. 

"  You  see,  the  owners  have  contracted  this  ship  for  a 
[152] 


Searching  for  the   Treasure 

voyage  to  Manila,  and  we  have  to  be  in  San  Francisco 
by  the  first  or  they'll  lose  big  money.  Forfeiting  a 
charter  amounts  to  something  in  these  days  when 
American  steamers  are  in  such  great  demand  for  the 
island  trade." 

"  That's  so,"  said  the  Doctor,  "  and  I  hope  for  the 
sake  of  everybody  concerned  that  we  may  be  able  to  pull 
in  on  time." 

"  But  I  don't  see  how  it's  going  to  be  done,"  said  Mr. 
Nason,  shaking  his  head. 

We  went  down  into  the  steerage,  which  was  nearly 
deserted,  as  most  of  the  passengers  were  sunning  them 
selves  in  the  balmy  air  on  deck.  Somers  and  Trust 
were  among  those  who  remained  below.  They  were 
down  in  their  corner  playing  their  cribbage  and  smok 
ing.  You  may  be  sure  they  took  very  little  interest  in 
their  game  when  the  six  of  us  —  the  Doctor,  Mr. 
Nason,  three  stalwart  deckhands  and  myself  —  ap 
peared  before  the  bulkhead  door,  and,  without  in  the 
least  regarding  them  or  the  anxious  looks  they  gave, 
began  to  slip  the  bolts  and  bars. 

"That's  strange,"  said  the  officer,  when  the  great 
iron  door  swung  open  and  the  dank  breath  from  down 
below  came  up  to  us  where  we  stood  in  the  steerage 
[153] 


The  Lure  o9  Gold 

wing.  "  I  never  opened  one  of  these  doors  after  it  was 
closed  for  several  days  that  it  didn't  stick  to  the  rubber 
gasket  in  the  jamb." 

The  Doctor  looked  at  me  with  large  significance, 
but  said  nothing.  I  knew  he  was  being  convinced  of 
the  truth  of  my  statement  that  the  bulkhead  had  been 
opened  but  a  few  days  before.  Mr.  Nason  led  the 
way  through  the  long  wing. 

"That  looks  pretty  tough,"  said  he,  glancing  at  the 
coal  bunkers.  "  Every  blamed  one  of  'em  on  this  side 
is  empty  as  an  old  oyster-can." 

"  It's  a  sorry  state  of  affairs,"  said  the  Doctor.  "  Too 
bad  there  isn't  a  coaling  station  somewhere  near  at 
hand." 

"It's  about  the  worst  place  in  the  whole  Pacific  to 
look  for  a  chance  to  coal  up,"  said  the  officer.  "I 
don't  know  what  we're  going  to  do." 

He  lighted  his  lantern  and  proceeded  down  the  wing 
to  the  door  which  led  out  upon  the  freight-deck.  As 
the  other  men  all  carried  lanterns,  that  the  search  might 
be  a  thorough  one,  there  was  plenty  of  light  inside. 
Save  for  a  little  heap  of  dunnage,  there  was  nothing  to 
be  seen  in  the  great  cavernous  hold  between-decks. 
This  dunnage,  as  I  may  remark  to  landsmen  readers, 
[154] 


Searching  for  the   Treasure 

is  only  a  miscellaneous  lot  of  old  pieces  of  lumber,  long 
and  short,  thick  and  thin,  which  is  used  to  wedge  be 
tween  the  boxes,  barrels  and  crates  containing  the  cargo, 
that  it  may  not  shift  while  the  ship  is  in  motion. 

We  reached  the  hatchway  in  a  few  steps,  and  de 
scended,  one  after  another,  down  the  narrow  slender 
iron  ladder  into  the  lower  hold.  I  was  the  last  one 
down,  and,  being  in  the  shadow  for  a  moment,  I  stum 
bled  into  a  litter  of  refuse  lumber. 

"  There's  quite  a  lot  of  dunnage  aboard,"  observed 
the  first  officer.  "But  I  guess  it  will  be  pretty  well 
cleaned  out  in  the  next  few  days." 

"  Why  ?  "  asked  the  Doctor. 

"We've  got  very  little  coal,  and  we've  got  to  burn 
something,  haven't  we?  There's  only  three  or  four 
thousand  feet  of  the  stuff,  and  it's  nothing  but  Oregon 
pine  and  California  redwood,  but  it  ought  to  keep  up 
steam  for  a  day  or  two.  What's  this  ?" 

His  feet  had  crunched  upon  a  crumply  mass  of 
broken  glass.  "  Oh,  Stetson's  beer  bottles !  "  he 
laughed.  "  Great  snakes !  How  they  went  to  pieces  in 
that  gale!" 

All  over  the  after  part  of  the  lower  hold  bright  crumbs 
of  shivered  glass  gleamed  in  the  light  of  the  lanterns. 
[155] 


The  Lure  o'  Gold 

The  sparkling  bits  were  strewn  thickly  in  some  places, 
but  in  others  there  was  but  a  thin  sprinkling  of  them. 
Our  boots  ground  upon  them  as  we  moved  along. 

"Not  the  best  place  in  the  world  for  a  bare-footed 
nigger,"  remarked  Mr.  Nason.  "  Wouldn't  it  be  a  joke 
if  we  left  this  stuff  for  the  Filipino  freight-handlers  to 
walk  on  ?  What  have  we  here  ?  " 

He  bent  over  and  picked  from  the  floor  an  old  ban 
dana  handkerchief,  looked  at  it  and  cast  it  aside.  I 
gathered  it  up  again,  hoping  that  in  some  way  it  might 
afford  a  clew.  We  all  searched  about  the  dirty,  glass- 
bestrewn  floor  of  the  hold,  and  the  lanterns  were  held 
high  to  see  if  the  gold  might  not  be  secreted  behind 
some  of  the  angle-bars,  a  complex  system  of  which 
served  as  braces  to  the  inner  side  of  the  ship.  One  of 
the  men  found  a  loose  plank  in  the  floor  of  the  forward 
part  of  the  hold,  and  this  was  lifted  in  the  hope  that  the 
treasure  might  be  hidden  below  it.  But  there  was 
nothing  there  except  a  little  reeking  bilge.  One  of 
the  crew  who  was  farther  aft  than  the  rest  of  us  gave 
a  startled  cry  and  ran  back  over  the  glass  flakes,  drop 
ping  his  lantern  on  the  way. 

"  What's    struck   you,    Tom  ? "    asked    Mr.    Nason, 
sharply.     "  Have  you  seen  a  ghost  ?  " 
[156] 


Searching  for  the   Treasure 

Tom  breathed  hard  several  times  and  gulped  a  little 
before  he  could  say  a  word. 

"No;  'tain't  no  ghost,"  gasped  he  at  last,  "it's  a  real 
live  dead  man,  sticking  his  head  through  a  box  and 
asking  what's  the  time  o'  day." 

"Sho!"  said  Mr.  Nason,  "you're  off,  Tom.  You 
and  Pete  and  George  pile  up  that  dunnage  back  there 
while  the  Doctor  and  I  look  at  your  dead  man." 

The  three  seamen  went  forward,  while  the  Doctor 
and  Mr.  Nason  crunched  over  the  glass.  I  followed 
my  friends  and  heard  the  first  officer  say  quietly  to  the 
Doctor : 

"  I'm  sorry  that  man  found  the  box,  which  must  have 
broke  open  in  some  way  while  being  tossed  around  in 
this  empty  hole.  I'm  sorry  he  found  it,  for  you  know 
what  a  lot  of  fuss  these  chaps  make  over  such  things  at 
sea.  That  dead  man  was  one  of  the  richest  miners  in 
Nome.  Too  much  whiskey  and  tundra  water  took 
him  off,  and  we've  got  to  take  his  body  home  to  his 
widow  or  there'll  be  no  end  of  trouble.  But  these  chaps 
may  chuck  him  overboard  now  on  the  sly,  so  that  we 
can  get  safely  into  port." 

"Yes,"  remarked  the  Doctor,  "they'll  be  laying  all 
our  bad  luck  to  him." 

[157] 


The  Lure  o  Gold 

"  Don't  you  know,"  said  the  first  officer,  reflectively, 
"  there  may  be  something  in  that  old  superstition  after  all. 
Now,  take  our  case :  We've  had  the  worst  kind  of  a  storm, 
and  are  blown  away  off  from  our  coal  station,  and  — 
Good  Lord !  That  was  enough  to  scare  a  man,  wasn't  it  ? 
His  head  is  sticking  out.  That's  true  enough." 

I  fell  back,  and  looked  the  other  way.  I  had  a  ter 
ror  of  dead  bodies  and  would  never  willingly  look  at 
one.  Not  that  I  was  in  the  least  alarmed,  for  I  was 
not.  I  did  not  share  the  superstition  of  the  members 
of  the  crew  as  to  having  dead  men  aboard  ship.  But 
my  repugnance  for  any  such  gruesome  sights  —  and 
particularly  that  of  a  body  in  a  battered  box  —  was 
unreasonably  strong.  So  I  kept  back,  with  my  face 
turned  away;  but  I  could  not  help  hearing  what  the 
first  officer  said: 

"Doctor,  this  looks  like  an  ugly  job,  but  I  guess 
we've  got  to  stand  it.  This  man's  got  to  be  put  back 
into  his  box,  and  I  suppose  we've  got  to  do  it.  You 
don't  mind  such  things  though,  do  you  ?  " 

"Well,"  said  the  Doctor,  "I  can't  say  I  relish  them 
very  much,  but  I'll  help.  Better  send  for  a  hammer 
and  some  nails.  It's  just  the  end  of  this  thing  that's 
come  loose." 

[158] 


Searching  for  the  Treasure 

Tom  was  sent  into  the  engine-room  and  returned 
with  the  hammer  and  nails,  which  Mr.  Nason  was 
obliged  to  take  from  him  at  a  respectful  distance  from 
the  box.  While  the  Doctor  and  the  first  officer  worked 
away  at  their  gruesome  task,  and  the  men  piled  up  the 
dunnage,  I  searched  about  the  hold  for  the  hiding-place 
of  the  treasure.  Soon  we  were  all  occupied  in  the  hunt 
again,  and  in  the  course  of  an  hour  it  seemed  that  every 
square  foot  of  the  flooring  of  the  lower  hold  had  been 
carefully  looked  over  two  or  three  times  before  Mr.  Nason, 
who  stood  away  aft  in  the  run  of  the  ship,  called  out : 

"Come  here,  Doctor!     This  may  be  the  place." 

Doctor  Quaritch  went  aft  and  I  followed  closely  at 
his  heels.  Mr.  Nason  had  set  his  lantern  on  the  floor 
and  was  looking  intently  down  at  a  rough  little  panel 
in  the  planking  about  a  foot  square.  The  panel  was 
made  by  two  indistinct  saw  cuts.  There  was  none  of 
the  broken  glass  in  the  run  of  the  ship,  so  that  the  saw 
cuts  were  not  covered  by  dangerous  fragments. 

"  I  can't  tell  whether  it's  old  or  new,"  said  Mr.  Nason, 
closely  scrutinizing  one  of  the  cuts.  "  If  it's  new  they've 
rubbed  dirt  and  tar  over  it  to  cover  it  up.  It's  a  neat 
job  anyway.  Looks  as  if  the  plank  was  cut  through 
on  a  level  with  a  very  fine  saw." 
[159] 


The  Lure  o'  Gold 

I  was  trembling  with  excitement,  and,  producing  my 
pocket  knife,  I  scratched  at  the  dirt  in  the  cracks. 

"  Looks  as  if  it  had  been  cut  lately,"  said  the  first 
officer,  when  I  had  scraped  some  of  the  tarry  filth  away 
from  the  joint.  "Bring  the  ripper,  Tom." 

The  long,  slim  ripping  iron,  which  looked  like  an 
attenuated,  flattened  cold  chisel,  was  brought  and  in 
serted  into  one  of  the  cracks. 

Just  then  I  heard  a  succession  of  quick,  nervous 
gasps  behind  me,  and,  looking  back,  I  saw  the  anxious 
face  of  Somers  dodging  out  of  the  circle  of  light.  There 
was  another  figure  beside  him,  sneaking  behind  the 
deckhands,  and  this  figure  I  took  to  be  that  of  Trust. 
My  first  impulse  was  to  resent  their  unauthorized  pres 
ence  there,  but  after  all  that  I  had  suffered  at  their 
hands  I  was  a  little  revengeful,  and  it  came  to  me  in  a 
flash  that  here  was  the  best  kind  of  revenge :  If  the  gold 
were  now  to  be  uncovered  before  their  eyes  and  they 
should  see  me  and  my  friends  take  possession  of  it,  I 
should  enjoy  the  spectacle  of  their  defeat  and  chagrin 
as  much  as  I  should  to  see  them  clapped  into  irons, 
which  act  of  justice  would  no  doubt  immediately  follow 
the  recovery  of  the  stolen  treasure. 

"  They  have  hidden  the  gold  between  this  plank  and 
[160] 


Searching  for  the   Treasure 

the  skin  of  the  ship,"  said  the  officer.  "There  is  no 
bilge  under  this  part  of  the  flooring." 

It  was  several  minutes  after  the  insertion  of  the  rip 
ping  iron,  which  was  used  as  a  lever  to  pry  up  the  plank 
panel,  before  the  stubborn,  well-nailed  wood  gave  way 
and  was  lifted  from  its  place  by  one  of  the  men.  But 
there  was  no  gold  in  the  hole.  There  was  nothing  but 
an  empty  space  below  where  the  plank  had  been,  and 
extending  down  almost  a  foot  to  the  skin  of  the  ship, 
as  the  first  officer  had  called  it. 

I  was  dumbfounded.  I  had  made  sure  in  my  own 
mind  that  the  treasure  was  there.  The  sawing  I  had 
heard  in  the  hold,  and  the  words  I  had  overheard  from 
the  three  men  who  had  gone  below  on  the  night  of  the 
beginning  of  the  storm,  had  made  me  confident  that 
the  rough  panel  had  concealed  the  hiding-place  of  the 
stolen  treasure.  Not  to  find  it  there  after  all  that 
search  was  a  bitter  disappointment  to  me.  I  got  down 
on  my  knees  and  thrust  my  hand  all  about  under  the 
floor  as  far  as  I  could  reach,  but  the  hand  touched 
nothing  but  the  cold,  damp  bottom  of  the  vessel. 

I  was  about  to  give  up  the  search  in  despair  when 
my  eye  caught  the  gleam  of  some  bright  specks  at  the 
bottom  of  the  hold  where  the  lantern  light  fell  upon 
[161] 


The  Lure  o  Gold 

them.  I  brushed  these  specks  together.  There  was 
about  a  teaspoonful  of  them  altogether.  I  held  them 
close  to  the  nearest  light. 

"  The  gold  has  been  here ! "  I  cried,  "  for  here  is  some 
of  it!" 

All  the  heads  of  the  searchers  crowded  closely  about 
me,  and  among  them  the  sinister  one  of  the  rascally 
Trust,  to  whom,  however,  I  paid  no  attention,  in  the 
excitement  of  the  moment,  except  to  remark  that  he 
seemed  to  be  very  much  disappointed  about  something. 

"Yes,"  said  Mr.  Nason,  examining  the  moist  grains 
in  my  hand.  "That's  gold  dust,  all  right.  They 
must  have  spilled  a  little  in  taking  it  out.  See  that 
small  nail  there.  Maybe  it  punched  a  hole  in  one  of 
the  sacks." 

"So  you  think  the  gold  was  really  hidden  there?" 
asked  the  Doctor. 

"It  certainly  looks  like  it,"  said  Mr.  Nason.  "You 
take  the  shape  of  this  piece  of  plank,  and  the  careful 
way  it  was  cut  out,  together  with  these  grains  of  gold, 
and  I  think  you've  got  to  admit  that  gold  was  stowed 
away  here,  and  within  a  few  days,  too,  for  those  rubber 
gaskets  worked  altogether  too  easy  to  have  been  long 
sticking  to  that  bulkhead  door.  That  gold  is  hidden 
[162] 


Searching  for  the   Treasure 

somewhere  aboard  this  ship,  and  I  want  you  men,"  he 
said,  addressing  the  hands  who  had  been  helping,  "to 
keep  a  sharp  lookout  for  it."  Then  he  turned  to  me. 
"  My  boy,"  he  said,  "  I  was  rather  hasty  in  what  I  said 
to  you  this  morning.  I  think  now  that  you  have  told 
the  truth  in  all  except  what  concerns  Mr.  Fishley. 
You  were  mistaken  there.  It  would  be  a  good  plan,  I 
think,  to  arrest  those  steerage  fellows  whom  you  sus 
pected." 

There  was  a  soft  scuttering  away  down  the  deck, 
and  I  cried  out  to  the  first  officer: 

"There  they  go  now!  They  have  been  lurking 
about  here  in  the  dark  and  have  just  run  away." 

"Well,  they  can't  get  off  the  ship  very  well,"  said 
Mr.  Nason,  "unless  they  jump  overboard.  We  can 
secure  them  any  time  we  want  them,  and  I  think  that 
will  be  soon." 

He  picked  up  his  lantern  and  passed  forward  to  the 
dunnage  pile,  which  he  looked  at  for  a  moment  thought 
fully.  Then  he  turned  to  the  hands. 

"I  think  while  you're  down  here,  boys,  you  may  as 

well  carry  some  of  this  dunnage  into  the  fire-room. 

They  may  need  it  before  morning.     They're  scraping 

the  bottoms  of  the  coal  bunkers,  so  Mr.  Derrick  says. 

[163] 


The  Lure  o'  Gold 

Take  all  you  can  carry.     I  guess  by  to-morrow  the 
Captain  will  order  the  lot  of  it  piled  into  the  furnaces." 

It  was  a  strange  sight,  and  one  I  had  never  thought 
to  see  aboard  ship,  this  gathering  up  of  loose  lumber 
to  make  steam.  But  each  man  took  his  load  and  car 
ried  it  forward  into  the  fire-room.  In  the  light  of  the 
engine-room  door  I  saw  in  the  arms  of  one  of  the  men 
a  lot  of  short  blocks,  and  among  them  an  object  that 
struck  me  as  oddly  familiar. 

"  Excuse  me,"  I  said,  going  up  to  the  man,  "  may  I 
look  at  that  thing  you  have  there  ?  " 

"You  mean  this  box?"  said  the  man.  He  handed 
it  to  me,  and  I  looked  at  it  carefully. 

The  box  was  a  small  one,  and  the  top  was  splintered 
a  little,  but  on  looking  at  the  flat  cover  I  saw  painted 
upon  it  in  black  lettering,  "John  Morning,  San  Fran 
cisco." 

"That's  my  box,"  said  I.  "Will  you  let  me  have 
it?" 

"  Your  box  ? "  said  Mr.  Nason,  who  had  overheard 
me. 

"Yes;  the  box  that  held  the  gold." 

"Where  did  you  pick  it  up?"  asked  the  officer  of 
the  deckhand. 

[164] 


Searching  for  the   Treasure 

"  It  was  a-layin'  among  the  dunnage,"  said  the  man. 
"The  other  fellows  picked  up  the  top  stuff  and  then  I 
gathered  this  in.  Is  it  the  young  gentleman's  gold- 
box?  Well,  well!" 

The  other  men  laid  down  their  burdens  and  gathered 
about  to  look  at  the  box  that  had  held  the  treasure. 

"Never  mind,  boys,"  commanded  the  first  officer. 
"Take  your  wood  to  the  bunkers.  Keep  the  box  if 
you  want  it,  Mr.  Morning.  I  guess  we'd  better  go  up 
and  look  after  those  robbers  in  the  steerage." 

When  we  reached  their  corner,  Somers  and  Trust 
were  deep  in  their  cribbage  game. 


[165] 


XV 


THE  LAST  POUND  OF  COAL 


TRUST  growled  furious  imprecations  when  he,  with 
his  companion,  was  seized  and  brought  on  deck  to 
be  taken  before  the  Captain.  He  declared  that  he 
knew  nothing  of  the  missing  gold,  and  he  glared  at  me 
with  that  one  burning  eye  in  a  way  that  I  shall  never 
forget.  Somers,  who  was  thoroughly  frightened,  had 
nothing  to  say,  but  kept  glancing  about  nervously  as 
if  looking  for  somebody.  When  he  saw  Max  Fishley 
come  along  the  deck  he  beckoned  to  him  two  or  three 
times,  but  the  third  officer  pretended  not  to  see  him. 

All  the  passengers  took  a  curious  interest  in  the  arrest 
of  the  two  men,  and  they  and  the  crew,  among  whom 
the  robbery  and  the  search  had  been  freely  gossiped, 
were  full  of  kindly  sympathy  for  me  and  execrations 
of  the  men  charged  with  the  crime. 

Little  Yohara's  eyes  were  gleaming  with  interest. 
When  he  saw  the  arrested  men  marched  forward  along 
the  deck,  he  came  around  in  front  of  Trust  and  stared 
[166] 


The  Last  Pound  of  Coal 

up  into  his  face  in  an  odd  and  altogether  Oriental  way, 
as  if  taking  note  of  every  feature. 

"I  sink  I  have  knowledge  of  the  gentleman  nex' 
times,"  said  Yohara  to  me,  "  if  he  shall  escape  away 
again.  I  shall  know  his  eye  better,  too." 

"The  lad  thinks  he's  a  born  detective,"  explained 
the  Doctor,  smiling.  "  He's  been  reading  a  lot  of  those 
nickel  detective  stories." 

Captain  Head  ordered  Somers  and  Trust  put  in  irons, 
as  I  had  hoped.  The  Captain  dispatched  the  matter 
in  a  jiffy,  and  then  entered  into  a  consultation  with  his 
first  officer,  at  which  Doctor  Quaritch  was  present. 
Their  talk,  as  I  heard  from  the  Doctor,  had  nothing 
to  do  with  the  arrest  or  the  missing  gold,  which  to  them 
were  matters  of  minor  importance  compared  with  the 
problem  of  getting  the  vessel  into  port  without  coal. 

"You  see,"  said  the  Doctor,  when  speaking  of  the 
matter,  "we  can't  make  any  headway  with  our  sails. 
They  are  small  affairs,  and  are  just  about  able  to  steady 
the  steamer  and  that's  all.  Of  course,  if  there  were  a 
gale  dead  aft  of  us  we  might  be  helped  along  consider 
ably,  but  the  wind  is  light  and  what  little  we  have  is 
not  from  the  right  quarter.  The  first  officer  recom 
mends  burning  all  the  dunnage,  those  empty  horse- 
[167] 


The  Lure  o'  Gold 

stalls  on  the  forward  deck  and  whatever  else  there  is 
of  unnecessary  lumber  aboard  ship.  I  shouldn't  won 
der,"  added  he,  slowly  and  impressively,  "but  that 
before  long  we  should  be  burning  a  lot  of  wood  that  is 
pretty  solidly  spiked  down.  I've  heard  of  such  a  thing 
as  gutting  a  vessel  in  order  to  get  her  into  port." 

"But  perhaps  we'll  fall  in  with  some  other  steamer 
before  we  have  to  do  that,"  said  I,  hopefully. 

"I  don't  know.  You  might  sail  all  the  way  from 
the  North  Pacific  down  to  San  Francisco  and  not  sight 
a  single  steamer.  I've  done  that  two  or  three  times. 
It's  an  unfrequented  part  of  the  world's  waters.  There's 
nothing  to  bring  a  steam  vessel  up  here  at  this  time  of 
the  year." 

"I  was  looking  at  the  chart,"  said  I,  " and  I  don't  see 
an  island  anywhere  within  two  thousand  miles  of  us." 

"No.  There's  a  great  basin  under  us  here,  over  a 
thousand  miles  wide  and  about  as  long.  I'm  told  it's 
the  deepest  part  of  the  whole  sea.  That  may  account 
for  the  intense  blueness  of  the  water." 

We  looked  abroad  upon  the  great  expanse  of  deep 

color,  for  the  beauty  of  which  I  should  have  had  a  better 

eye  had  not  the  thought  of  Max  Fishley  entered  my 

head  at  that  moment.     I  had  felt  aggrieved  because 

[168] 


The  Last  Pound  of  Coal 

the  officers  would  pay  no  heed  to  my  charges  as  to  his 
complicity  in  the  robbery.  But  now  it  occurred  to  me 
that  it  was  better  he  should  be  free  from  suspicion  on 
their  part  for  the  present.  He  doubtless  knew  where 
the  gold  was  hidden,  and  by  closely  watching  him  I 
might  be  able  to  discover  its  hiding-place.  I  said 
nothing  of  the  matter  to  the  Doctor,  but  walked  away, 
and  for  the  rest  of  that  day  and  during  the  day  follow 
ing  Mr.  Fishley  made  few  movements  of  which  I  was 
not  apprised.  To  give  the  man  full  credit,  however, 
I  must  say  that  I  noted  absolutely  nothing  suspicious 
in  his  actions.  He  had  charge  of  the  coal-passers  and 
deckhands  who  were  carrying  the  dunnage  and  the 
stall  lumber  to  the  fire-room. 

The  last  pound  of  coal  was  consumed,  and  the 
Modesto  was  now  being  propelled  through  the  water 
by  means  of  steam  generated  by  pine  boards  and  pieces 
of  scantling.  This  fuel  lasted  but  a  short  time  and 
drove  us  but  three  hundred  miles  nearer  port.  There 
were  still  over  fourteen  hundred  miles  of  water  to 
traverse,  which,  in  a  moderate  going  craft  like  the 
Modesto,  meant  nearly  five  days'  sailing  under  the  most 
favorable  conditions. 

The  Captain  complained  of  the  slow  movements  of 
[169] 


The  Lure  o'  Gold 
t  . 

the  men,  who  were  now  ripping  the  cargo  battens  from 
the  inside  of  the  hold.  He  stormed  about  and  ordered 
all  hands  down  there  —  steward's  men,  pantrymen, 
freight-handlers,  coal-passers,  oilers  and  all  the  lesser 
officers  —  everybody  save  the  firemen. 

"  Lively  there  —  lively ! "  he  kept  calling.  "  We've 
got  to  keep  those  boilers  hot  or  we'll  run  down  to  half- 
speed.  Mr.  Nason,  keep  'em  at  the  battens  good  and 
hard.  We  can't  let  up  a  minute.  We've  simply  got 
to  make  port  by  the  first." 

The  men  flung  at  their  work,  ripping  off  the  long 
battens  with  axes,  adzes  and  other  tools,  and  filing  with 
their  burdens  into  the  hot  fire-room,  where  the  furnace 
doors  were  hardly  closed  for  a  moment  at  a  time. 

"  More  steam !  Can't  you  get  up  more  steam  ?  "  I 
heard  the  Captain  calling  down  the  pipe,  and  was  near 
enough  to  catch  the  chief  engineer's  reply: 

"The  dashed  stuff  is  too  light,  sir.  The  draught 
throws  it  out  of  the  stack  before  it's  half-burned.  I've 
tried  wetting  it,  but  it's  no  good  —  no  good  at  all.  I 
can't  get  up  any  kind  of  pressure." 

"Send  Nason  up  here,"  bawled  the  Captain.  "I'll 
do  better  than  eight  knots  if  I  have  to  burn  up  the  whole 
insides  of  her." 

[170] 


The  Last  Pound  of  Coal 

Mr.  Nason  came  on  deck. 

"We've  got  to  get  up  some  steam  somehow,"  said 
the  Captain,  calling  across  to  the  first  officer  before  he 
was  within  thirty  feet  of  him.  "There's  good  wood 
in  those  masts  and  spars.  Have  'em  cut  down,  will 
you  ?  " 

"All  right,  sir!"  was  the  reply,  in  as  even  tones  as  if 
the  order  were  given  every  day  of  the  year.  And  soon 
the  axes  rang  on  deck  and  down  came  the  mizzenmast. 

I  happened  to  pass  the  cabin  where  lay  the  offensive 
Bill,  with  his  wounded  head.  He  was  sitting  up  in 
his  berth,  looking  about  with  grave  interest. 

"  What's  all  this  row  about  ? "  he  asked,  staring  out 
at  me  through  the  open  door.  "  What  are  they  cuttin' 
away  the  masts  fer  ?  " 

I  did  not  deign  to  give  a  reply,  and  was  just  turning 
away  when  he  recognized  me. 

"Hullo!"  he  cried,  in  his  great  gruff  voice.  "It's 
you,  is  it  ?  What  are  you  a-doin'  aboard  ?  " 

"Attending  strictly  to  my  own  affairs,"  said  I,  rather 
curtly. 

"Oh,  of  course!  But  can't  yeh  tell  a  man  what's 
up?" 

"I  might  tell  a  man  who  was  of  a  different  stripe 
[171] 


The  Lure  o'  Gold 

from  you,"  said  I,  "but  I  decline  to  give  information 
to  anybody  who  plays  the  despicable  part  of  a  thief." 

"  What  d'yeh  mean  ? "  he  snarled,  reddening  and 
looking  particularly  ugly  with  his  head  bandaged  up 
and  his  eyes  full  of  malignant  fire. 

"  I  mean  that  you  pushed  my  gold  overboard  off  the 
lighter  for  those  rascally  robbers  to  pick  up  in  their 
launch." 

"  Why,  my  dear  young  feller,  you're  mistook  — 
you're  altogether  mistook.  I  ain't  shoved  no  gold 
off'n  no  lighter.  I  don't  know  nothin'  about  it." 

"Your  double  negatives  make  the  best  possible 
affirmatives,"  I  replied.  But  knowing  that  he  did  not 
understand  that  remark,  I  added:  "I  do  not  believe 
you.  I  am  positive  that  you  did  it." 

"  Well,  I  s'pose  yeh  got  a  right  to  think  anything  yeh 
want,  but  I  tell  yeh,  ye're  a  way  off.  If  the  gold  went 
overboard  it  was  on  account  o'  the  way  the  lighter 
swung." 

"It  was  because  of  the  way  you  swung  the  box,"  I 
insisted,  "that  sent  it  into  the  sea,  and  nothing  else. 
But  perhaps  you'll  be  glad  to  learn  that  the  men  who 
made  you  go  aboard  the  Flying  Mist  on  a  fool's  errand 
are  now  under  arrest.  I  mean  Pete  Slattery  and  his 
[172] 


The  Last  Pound  of  Coal 

pink-faced  friend,  who  give  their  names  as  Trust  and 
Somers  on  board  this  ship." 

"Where?"  asked  Bill,  unguardedly.  "Not  on 
board?" 

"Yes;  on  this  boat.     They're  in  irons." 

"  Oh,"  he  chuckled.  "  Good  enough  fer  'em !  But," 
he  added  quickly,  catching  the  idea  that  he  was  in 
criminating  himself,  "I  don't  know  anything  about 
'em  —  not  a  word.  I  never  had  no  truck  with  'em." 

I  turned  away  of  a  sudden  as  I  saw  the  coal- 
passers  going  by  with  pieces  of  the  mast  to  be  lowered 
into  the  fire-room.  I  went  up  to  the  Captain's 
cabin.  He  was  sitting  at  his  big  table,  a  chart  spread 
before  him. 

"  Well,  young  man,  what  is  it  ?  "  he  asked  gruffly. 

"That  fellow  Bill,  sir,  that  we  rescued  when  the 
Flying  Mist  went  down." 

"What  about  him?" 

"  Well,  he's  the  man  that  pushed  my  gold  overboard 
from  the  lighter." 

"Yes,  I  know.  Doctor  Quaritch  has  told  me  that 
already,"  he  said  querulously. 

"  But  he's  getting  well." 

"Glad  to  hear  it." 

[173] 


The  Lure  o'  Gold 

"Yes,  sir;  he's  getting  well,  and  don't  you  think  it 
would  be  a  good  idea  to  put  him  in  irons,  as  you  have 
done  with  Trust  and  Somers  ?  " 

"No;  I  don't,"  was  the  curt  reply. 

"  But  he's  guilty  —  he's  a  criminal  —  and  he  stole — 

"I  don't  doubt  it,"  said  the  Captain,  petulantly. 
"But  by  to-morrow  morning  I'm  going  to  set  every 
mother's  son  aboard  this  ship,  criminals  and  everybody 
—  I  don't  care  who  —  getting  out  stuff  to  feed  the  fur 
naces." 

"  The  passengers  ? "  I  asked  in  wonder. 

"  That's  what  I  mean  —  and  I've  got  authority  to 
do  it.  If  any  of  'em  don't  take  to  the  work  they'll  be 
punched  up  until  they  do.  I'll  line  'em  up  on  deck 
and  turn  the  big  hose  on  'em  —  that's  what  I'll  do." 

"  Oh,"  I  hastened  to  say,  "  I  don't  doubt  they'll  all 
go  to  work  very  cheerfully.  I  know  I  shall." 

"All  right,  my  boy,  and  when  we  get  to  port  your 
gold-stealers  will  be  ready  to  be  handed  over  to  the 
police." 

Next  morning,  much  to  the  surprise  of  the  passen 
gers,  they  were  all  summoned  on  deck  by  the  Captain 
and  quietly  told  that  the  steamer  had  burned  all  her 
coal.  They  were  asked  to  take  off  their  coats  and  help 
[174] 


The  Last  Pound  of  Coal 

the  crew  tear  out  the  superficial  woodwork  and  cut  it 
up  for  fuel. 

There  were  some  mutterings  among  the  first-cabin 
men,  who  said  they  didn't  want  to  work  their  passage 
when  it  was  paid  for  already;  but  they  took  the  tools 
that  were  handed  out  to  them  and  proceeded  to  the 
task  of  demolition.  Most  of  the  passengers  were  will 
ing  and  anxious  to  help.  There  were  only  three  women 
aboard,  and  one  of  these  —  a  buxom  girl  from  Sacra 
mento  —  insisted  upon  doing  what  she  called  her  share 
of  the  work,  but  Captain  Head  would  not  permit  her 
to  help. 

"  Get  at  those  after  deckhouses  the  first  thing,  Mr. 
Nason,"  he  ordered. 

"All  right,  sir." 

The  first  officer  led  the  way  aft  and  directed  the  at 
tack  upon  the  neat,  white-painted  woodwork.  First, 
the  doors  were  removed  and  slid  down  into  the  fire-room 
through  a  hastily  constructed  chute.  Then  followed 
the  berth  frames  and  the  moldings.  This  was  light 
work.  But  when  the  axes  and  ripping  irons  were 
cleaving  and  tearing  the  walls  of  the  houses  and  the 
partitions,  those  of  the  passengers  not  used  to  manual 
labor  perspired  prodigiously. 
[175] 


The  Lure  o'  Gold 

"This  is  a  sight  I  never  expected  to  see  aboard  this 
ship,"  said  the  Doctor,  burying  the  blade  of  a  sharp 
axe  into  the  outside  wall  of  one  of  the  staterooms,  "  and 
it's  a  sad  sight,  too.  The  poor  old  Modesto!  I  hate 
like  everything  to  see  them  chopping  her  up." 

"Yes,"  said  I,  prying  off  a  piece  of  "tongue-and- 
groove,"  "but  I  suppose  it's  the  only  thing  left  to  be 
done." 

"They  must  burn  up  and  destroy  the  ship,"  said 
Yohara,  thoughtfully,  bending  over  to  pick  up  some 
of  the  splintered  pieces  of  old  lumber  which  lay  on  deck, 
"  to  voyage  it  into  San  Francisco.  Yes,  I  am  so  very 
sorry,  so  very  sorry  —  this  beautiful  ship !  She  must 
be  all  burn  —  all  burn ! " 

"  Oh,  not  so  bad  as  that,  Yohara,"  said  the  Doctor, 
reassuringly.  "  You  see,"  he  said,  turning  to  me,  "  she's 
a  composite  steamer  —  they  don't  build  'em  any  more 
—  and  she's  got  lots  of  wood  in  her." 

"  Composite  ? "  I  asked,  prying  away  at  another 
board. 

"Yes;  iron  frame  and  wooden  hull.     There's  a  lot 

of  metal  in  her,  but  all  her  decks  and  sides  are  wood. 

There's  a  good  deal  to  burn  if  they  conclude  to  take  up 

the  planking  and  all,  though  that  would  take  a  great 

[176] 


The  Last  Pound  of  Coal 

lot  of  the  stiffening  out  of  her.  But  I'm  awfully  sorry 
to  see  this  done  —  awfully  sorry." 

"Don't  you  think,  Doctor,"  said  I,  "there  will  be 
a  pretty  good  chance  now  of  finding  that  hidden  gold  ?  " 

"Yes,"  said  he,  reflectively,  "and  we  ought  to  be 
working  where  we  would  be  likely  to  run  across  it.  It 
never  would  be  hidden  anywhere  around  on  the  hurri 
cane  deck,  where  all  the  passengers  are.  If  it's  found 
at  all,  it  will  be  down  below  somewhere." 

"I'm  going  to  ask  Mr.  Nason  if  there's  any  ripping 
out  going  on  down  there,"  said  I,  "and  if  there  is,  I 
shall  request  him  to  assign  me  to  that  part  of  the  job." 

"  Now  if  it  was  opium,"  said  the  Doctor,  running  on 
as  if  I  had  not  spoken  —  a  habit  of  his  which  never 
seemed  impolite  to  those  who  knew  him  very  well  — 
"  if  it  was  opium,  I'd  know  what  to  say  about  directing 
a  search,  for  I've  run  on  the  China  route,  and  I've  seen 
it  taken  out  from  all  sorts  of  places.  The  coal  bunkers 
—  they're  likely  places  to  find  smuggled  stuff  in.  But 
ours  being  empty  to  the  last  walnut  of  a  piece,  there 
wouldn't  be  any  good  looking  there.  I  saw  five  hun 
dred  taels  of  opium  taken  out  of  one  bunker  by  cus 
toms  men  one  trip.  And  then  there  are  the  waste  bins 
— they  hide  stuff  in  there;  and  just  before  getting  into 
[177] 


The  Lure  o'  Gold 

port  they'll  put  it  in  the  ashes,  and  chuck  it  out  of  the 
ash  chute  into  a  small  boat  alongside.  Oh,  there's 
hundreds  of  places,  when  you  think  'em  all  over,  but 
the  most  likely  place  of  all,  to  my  notion,  is  down  in 
the  lower  hold  under  that  planking.  I  know  we've 
looked  about  quite  a  bit  down  there  already,  but  we 
haven't  taken  up  any  planks,  except  a  piece  or  two. 
When  those  planks  come  up,  if  they  ever  do  —  though 
it's  unsafe,  to  my  notion,  taking  the  stiffening  out  of 
the  bottom  in  that  way  —  you  want  to  be  on  hand,  my 
boy,  with  your  eyes  peeled.  I'll  be  there,  too.  What 
you  want  to  look  out  for  is  these  dead-broke  miners, 
coming  home  from  Nome.  They're  just  as  likely  to 
sneak  your  dust  as  anybody,  and  a  little  more  so.  When 
you  think  how  disappointed  they  are,  with  nothing  to 
show  for  all  their  season's  work  but  an  empty  poke  and 
a  few  frost-bites,  you  may  understand  how  readily 
some  of  them  would  take  the  chance  of  getting  hold  of 
that  dust  and  having  something  real  big  and  substan 
tial  to  take  home." 


[178] 


XVI 


FINDING  IS  KEEPING 


I  WENT  over  and  asked  the  first  officer  about  the 
work  of  "  fuel-grubbing  "  in  the  lower  hold. 

"That  will  begin  to-morrow,"  said  he.  "We  are 
giving  the  crew  half  a  day's  rest  while  the  pas 
sengers  are  at  work  up  here.  This  is  a  light  job 
and  that's  the  reason  the  passengers  were  set  to  work 
upon  it.  Ripping  up  those  heavy  planks  down  there 
will  be  a  tough  job  to  tackle,  and  it  will  be  a  slow  one, 
too." 

"That's  right"  said  Mr.  Lovell,  the  second  officer. 

"We'll  begin  to  work  on  it  early  in  the  morning," 
said  Mr.  Nason. 

"  What  time  ?  "  asked  the  Doctor. 

"Seven  o'clock.  If  you  and  the  lad  want  to  work 
down  there,  as  you  seem  anxious  to  do,  I've  no  objec 
tion.  But  I  should  think  that  instead  of  a  damp,  dark 
place  you'd  prefer  it  up  here  in  the  sunlight  and  fresh 
air.  Oh,  yes;  I  know  what  you're  after  —  you  want 
[179] 


The  Lure  o9  Gold 

to  find  that  dust.     Well,  I  hope  you  may  be  successful, 
but  —  "  and  he  shook  his  head. 

"What  are  you  going  to  do  with  your  dead  man, 
Mr.  Nason  ?  "  asked  the  Doctor.  "  He's  down  there, 
you  know." 

"I  guess  I'll  have  to  remove  him  temporarily  from 
the  lower  hold  before  we  begin  work,"  said  the  first 
officer.  "It  would  be  paying  him  very  small  respect 
to  have  all  that  clatter  going  on  so  near  him." 

"That's  true,"  affirmed  Doctor  Quaritch,  "and 
then  there  are  the  men  to  consider,  I  suppose." 

They  talked  awhile  on  this  subject,  which  had  so 
little  attraction  for  me  that  I  strolled  away. 

While  amidships,  I  became  much  interested  in  the 
operations  of  some  pantrymen  who  were  trying  to  split 
an  enormous  butcher's  block  so  that  it  could  go  into 
one  of  the  furnaces.  The  block  was  of  eucalyptus,  or 
Australian  gumwood.  This  wood  is  very  fibrous,  and 
when  dried  a  long  time  it  is  excessively  hard  to  split, 
being  almost  as  tough  as  iron.  The  axe-blades  that 
fell  upon  the  smooth,  hard  top  of  the  block  rebounded 
without  making  the  slightest  impression.  The  men 
worked  hard  and  perspired  profusely,  but  could  not 
detach  a  piece  of  the  wood  as  large  as  a  man's  arm 
[180] 


" Finding  is  Keeping'9 

"You  greenhorns  don't  know  how  to  do  nothin'," 
growled  Max  Fishley,  as  he  came  along  the  deck  where 
the  block  stood,  it  having  been  wheeled  away  from  the 
cook's  domain  on  a  freight-truck.  "  Let  me  show  yeh. 
Git  a  wedge,  Jack,  an'  a  big  one." 

A  large  steel  wedge  was  brought  from  the  ship- 
carpenter's  shop,  and  Fishley  quite  ceremoniously 
stuck  its  point  upon  the  middle  of  the  block.  After 
pounding  the  steel  head  for  five  or  ten  minutes  with  the 
back  of  the  axe  he  managed  to  make  it  stand  upright 
in  the  wood.  Then  he  swung  the  axe  hard,  striking 
the  back  of  it  upon  the  wedge,  which  slowly  entered 
the  little  crack  he  had  made.  But  at  the  last  blow, 
after  he  had  puffed  and  grunted  for  half  an  hour  and 
the  steel  had  sunk  almost  out  of  sight  in  the  wood,  the 
crack  had  not  been  enlarged  perceptibly. 

"  Go  'way ! "  he  bawled  to  the  men,  on  whose  faces 
broad  grins  were  now  visible.  "  Go  'way ! "  he  puffed, 
his  face  as  red  as  a  piece  of  flannel.  "  You're  wastin'  yer 
time  here.  This  blasted  thing  wouldn't  burn  any  way. 
It's  like  an  old  anvil.  That's  what  it  is — an  old  anvil." 

He  wiped  his  wet  face,  gave  the  block  a  kick,  threw 
down  the  axe  and  hurried  along  over  the  deck,  swear 
ing  uproariously,  while  all  hands  laughed. 
[181] 


The  Lure  o'  Gold 

"It's  a  little  tough,  even  for  such  a  smart  man  as 
Mr.  Fishley,"  said  one  pantryman,  chuckling. 

"  Oh,  he  knew  how  to  do  it,"  said  another. 

"Yes,  he  was  wise." 

"It's  a  wonder  his  cuss  words  didn't  split  it." 

"Yes,  he's  a  corker  on  the  swear,"  was  the  remark 
made  by  a  burly  miner,  "  but  that  block'll  never  see  the 
furnace  unless  they  use  a  little  powder  in  an  auger- 
hole;  an'  I  don't  s'pose  they'd  do  that  aboard  ship." 

In  the  morning  I  was  down  in  the  lower  hold  with 
the  other  passengers  and  some  of  the  crew  under  Mr. 
Lovell,  the  second  officer.  I  was  helping  to  rip  up  the 
planks.  This  was  tedious  work,  as  the  first  officer  had 
predicted.  In  order  to  loosen  and  take  up  one  of  the 
soggy  planks  it  was  necessary  to  cut  off  with  cold  chisels 
the  heads  of  the  rivets  or  bolts  that  held  them  to  the 
angle-iron.  Where  it  was  possible  to  do  so,  we  would 
split  the  plank  at  the  point  where  the  rivet  entered  the 
wood  and  thus  loosen  it ;  but  this  was  not  done  as  a  rule, 
for  the  blade  of  the  axe  would  strike  the  rivet  or  the 
edge  of  the  angle-iron  below  the  plank  and  would  dull 
the  tool  badly.  As  we  had  no  time  to  sharpen  axes,  it 
was  deemed  advisable  to  keep  their  edges  in  good  con 
dition.  The  cold  chisels  and  ripping  irons  were  best 
[182] 


"Finding  is  Keeping" 

for  the  purpose  of  loosening  the  wood  and  were  the 
oftenest  used.  The  work  was  so  difficult  that  it  took 
an  hour  to  remove  the  first  three  planks. 

When  the  planks  were  lifted  we  saw  that  under  them 
and  on  top  of  the  concrete  in  the  bottom  of  the  ship 
was  a  mass  of  coal  screenings,  wheat  and  rotten  wood 
bits,  while  scattered  among  this  refuse  were  old  Brazil 
nuts,  pecans,  and  almonds.  This  ancient  and  musty 
litter  was  the  sif tings  from  former  cargoes  of  the  old 
steamer.  The  stuff  had  fallen  through  the  cracks  in 
the  upper  planking.  I  poked  through  the  debris  with 
a  stick,  hoping  that  the  treasure  might  be  hidden  some 
where  beneath  the  strange  mixture. 

I  noticed  that  other  passengers  were  poking,  too, 
and  scattering  wheat  and  coal  screenings  all  over  the 
floor.  But  none  of  the  searchers  seemed  to  find  that 
for  which  they  sought.  The  broken  glass  cut  the 
hands  of  the  workers,  and  there  was  a  good  deal  of 
swearing  because  of  it. 

When  the  anxious  master  of  the  Modesto  found  out 
what  slow  progress  we  were  making  he  ordered  more 
men  to  help  us.  I  was  surprised  to  see  among  the  new 
comers  Trust  and  Somers. 

"  Captain  sent  us  down  here  to  join  Mr.  LovelPs 
[183] 


The  Lure  o9  Gold 

gang,"  said  Somers  to  me,  "but  if  I  had  anything  to 
say  about  it,  I'd  be  back  where  I  was." 

"  You'd  rather  remain  in  irons  than  go  to  work  ?  "  I 
exclaimed  in  disgust.  "And  work  such  as  this,  too, 
so  necessary  to  the  interest  of  the  ship  and  our 
selves?" 

"  I  don't  see  how  it's  goin'  to  benefit  anybody  to  tear 
a  steamer  to  pieces  just  for  the  sake  of  getting  into  port 
a  few  days  sooner,"  said  Somers,  who  was  evidently 
not  in  a  hurry  to  reach  San  Francisco  now  that  he  was 
under  arrest.  "  And  Mr.  Trust  here  thinks  jest  like  I 
do,  don't  you,  Trust  ?  " 

His  partner  smiled  an  evil  smile.  Then  his  one 
eye  regarded  his  mattock  contemptuously.  "They've 
given  me  the  heaviest  tool  they  could  find,"  said  he, 
snarlingly.  "  This  mattock  feels  like  it  weighed  a  ton." 

"I'll  trade  you  my  crowbar  for  it,"  proposed  Somers. 

"No,  you  won't,"  was  the  quick  reply. 

"  Get  to  work  there ! "  bawled  the  second  officer, 
hastily  giving  each  of  the  complaining  men  a  harsh 
shove  with  his  big  hands.  "This  job  is  a  good  deal 
pleasanter  than  breaking  rock  in  a  San  Quentin  chain 
gang,  where  you'll  be  before  long." 

I  saw  Somers  wince  and  grind  his  teeth  as  he  grasped 
[184] 


" Finding  is  Keeping" 

his  crowbar  tightly  and  inserted  it  under  the  edge  of  a 
plank. 

While  the  two  pirates  worked  together,  they  had 
much  to  say  in  quiet  undertones.  When  Max  Fishley 
came  down  into  the  hold  they  regarded  him  with  mani 
fest  displeasure  and  suspicion.  They  had  nothing  to 
say  to  him,  and  he  kept  aloof  from  them,  though  I 
saw  him  look  at  them  very  closely  several  times.  Fish- 
ley  went  away  after  half  an  hour,  and  soon  a  curious 
change  came  over  the  two  men  whom  I  had  believed 
to  be  in  complicity  with  him.  This  was  after  they  had 
had  a  further  consultation  in  a  corner  of  the  hold  when 
the  second  officer's  back  was  turned.  They  seemed 
wholly  to  have  changed  their  attitude  toward  the  work 
in  hand,  for  they  now  attacked  it  with  surprising  vigor. 
Whenever  they  were  raising  a  plank  or  saw  one  lifted 
near  them  they  would  dart  anxious  glances  beneath  it, 
sometimes  getting  down  and  poking  under  it,  just  as  I 
was  doing  at  my  end  of  the  job.  I  puzzled  over  the 
change  that  had  so  suddenly  been  wrought  in  them, 
and  spoke  quietly  to  the  Doctor  about  it.  But  it  was 
as  much  a  mystery  to  him  at  the  first  as  it  was  to  me. 
He  could  make  nothing  of  it.  Just  before  the  dinner 
hour,  however,  he  came  over  and  said  to  me : 
[185] 


The  Lure  o9  Gold 

"I  think  I  have  it;  and  what  happens  in  the  next 
few  days  will  prove  I'm  right.  These  fellows,  Somers 
and  Trust,  have  been  fooled  by  Max  Fishley  —  that 
is,  assuming  that  he  was  in  with  them,  which  you  in 
sisted  upon  so  stoutly  —  and  if  that  is  so,  they  don't 
know  where  that  gold  is  any  more  than  you  or  I." 

"Well,"  said  I,  "how  does  that  account  for  their  not 
caring  to  go  to  work  at  the  first  when  they  might  stand 
as  good  a  chance  as  any  of  us  to  find  the  treasure  and 
put  it  aside  here  somewhere  in  a  dark  corner  ?  " 

"I  thought  of  that  too,"  said  Doctor  Quaritch.  "I 
thought  that  after  Fishley  had  secretly  removed  the 
gold  from  the  place  where  the  three  of  them  had  hidden 
it,  and  they  had  discovered  his  duplicity  while  lurking 
about  when  we  removed  that  floor  panel,  they  had 
nearly  despaired  of  ever  seeing  the  gold  again.  After 
their  arrest  no  doubt  they  gave  up  the  game  entirely, 
and  may  have  planned  to  turn  State's  evidence  against 
Fishley  a  little  later.  In  the  first  hours  of  their  release 
from  the  irons  they  could  see  nothing  in  this  business 
down  here  but  hard  work,  and  that  they  did  not  relish 
in  the  least,  as  such  fellows  never  do.  But  when  they 
saw  Fishley  come  prying  about,  it  occurred  to  them 
that  the  gold  might  be  secreted  somewhere  down  here, 
[186] 


" Finding  is  Keeping" 

and  that  there  was  a  chance  of  getting  it  yet  and  of 
making  away  with  it.  So  they  have  gone  to  work, 
hammer  and  tongs,  to  discover  the  stuff." 

"But  in  case  they  find  it,"  said  I,  "what  can  they 
do  with  it  ?  They  can't  take  it  off  the  steamer." 

"I  don't  know  what  they  may  have  schemed  as  to 
that;  but  they're  very  crafty  and  full  of  rascally  re 
sources." 

I  was  much  impressed  by  the  Doctor's  conjectures, 
and  it  pleased  me  to  observe  that  his  process  of  reason 
ing  had  almost,  if  not  quite,  convinced  him  of  Max 
Fishley's  complicity  in  the  crime. 

I  thought  that  if  these  theories  of  the  Doctor  should 
prove  to  be  correct,  it  was  evident  that  Somers  and 
Trust  were  altogether  in  the  dark  respecting  the  where 
abouts  of  the  treasure.  As  to  this  I  was  ready  to  re 
joice.  It  seemed  to  me  eminently  just  that  the  two 
villains  should  lose  their  loot.  And  as  far  as  I  could 
see  I  had  as  good  a  chance  of  getting  it  now  as  before. 
I  thought  that  Fishley's  visit  to  the  hold  must  have  been 
due  to  his  anxiety  over  the  treasure.  He  was,  no 
doubt,  so  fearful  that  some  one  should  find  it  that  he 
could  not  keep  at  his  post,  which  for  the  time  was  on 
deck,  but  had  to  be  running  down  below  to  see  what 
[187] 


The  Lure  o9  Gold 

was  being  done.  In  support  of  this  idea  of  the  third 
officer  being  worried  about  the  work  of  demolition  that 
might  at  any  moment  unearth  the  treasure,  we  had  to 
observe  that  he  came  down  again  just  before  dinner, 
looked  about  carefully,  and  returned  quickly  to  the 
upper  deck.  The  Doctor  looked  at  me  significantly. 

"If  things  weren't  in  the  shape  they  are  now  on 
board  this  ship,"  he  undertoned  to  me,  "  I'd  have  that 
man  tied  up  and  have  the  hose  turned  on  him  until  he 
told  where  the  gold  was.  But  the  Captain  would  think 
I  was  daft  to  propose  anything  of  the  sort,  with  all  this 
rumpus  going  on." 

And  truly  it  was  a  chaotic  condition  of  affairs  that 
now  obtained  aboard  the  Modesto.  I  observed  this 
more  particularly  as  the  Doctor  and  I  were  told  off  on 
a  little  dinner  watch  of  half  an  hour  when  we  grabbed 
and  bolted  a  cold  snack  and  walked  about  a  bit  on  deck. 
Wherever  we  went,  below  or  above  decks,  men  with 
their  arms  full  of  splintered  lumber  were  constantly 
running  into  us,  as  they  swarmed  toward  the  open 
space  above  the  fire-room,  where  their  burdens  were 
slid  down  the  chute  to  the  hungry  furnaces,  which  ate 
the  dry  stuff  as  though  it  were  so  much  matchwood. 

Chopping,  ripping,  tearing,  rending  and  creaking 
[188] 


ftp 

"Finding  is  Keeping" 

noises  came  from  everywhere,  as  boards  and  planks 
were  cut  or  pried  off,  and  nails  and  bolts  and  rivets  gave 
way  unwillingly  before  the  quick,  insistent  work  of  the 
destroyers,  who  ran  about  covered  with  sweat  and  dirt, 
bent  upon  their  strange  and  unremitting  toil. 

Clouds  of  dust  puffed  out  over  the  decks  or  lay  in 
little  wind-piled  heaps  abaft  the  ventilators  and  sky 
lights.  Strings  of  torn  canvas,  cordage,  bits  of  splin 
tered  stanchions,  boards  and  moldings  were  strewn 
about,  and  all  over  the  hurricane  deck  lay  gleaming 
crumbs  of  broken  glass  from  panes  that  had  been 
knocked  from  the  stateroom  windows  and  had  been 
ground  under  the  heels  of  the  workers.  Nearly  every 
man  aboard  had  been  turned  into  a  wood-grubber  or 
wood-passer,  and  once  I  saw  the  Captain  himself  with 
a  big  painted  board  in  his  arms,  walking  toward  the 
chute.  But  for  the  most  part  he  seemed  to  be  stamp 
ing  the  deck  and  roaring  down  through  the  pipe,  "  More 
steam!  More  steam!  Can't  you  crowd  on  a  little 
more  steam  ?  " 

I  grieve  to  say  that  his  commands  were  interspersed 
with  a  great  many  imprecations  that  I  am  loath  to  re 
cord.  But  in  trying  times  aboard  ship  little  attention 
is  paid  to  the  language  used  by  its  master.  It  is  to  the 
[189] 


The  Lure  o  Gold 

order  itself,  and  not  to  the  trimmings,  profane  or  other 
wise,  that  the  men  pay  heed. 

They  told  me  that  the  fiercest  swearing  done  by  the 
good  Captain  was  when  he  went  down  into  the  lower 
hold  and  saw  the  musty  litter  that  still  lay  between  the 
angle-irons. 

"Why  didn't  somebody  tell  me  about  this?"  he 
bawled  to  Fishley,  while  he  pointed  to  the  coal  siftings 
and  old  wheat.  "  There  ain't  any  brains  on  board  this 
ship,  I  guess.  Why,  that  stuff  would  burn  like  a  house 
afire,  and  make  some  steam,  too.  Tell  'em  to  get  boxes 
and  freight-trucks  and  wheel  it  out,  raise  it  to  the  upper 
deck  and  dump  it  down  the  chute ! " 

His  orders  were  obeyed,  and  soon  the  dust  flew  up 
out  of  the  chute  in  great  clouds  all  over  the  deck,  nearly 
choking  the  men,  while  from  the  fire-room  came  howls 
of  protest. 

"They're  sendin'  down  glass  an'  gravel  for  us  to 
burn!"  was  the  loud  complaint,  for  some  of  the  frag 
ments  of  the  broken  bottles  were  among  the  coal  screen 
ings  and  the  wheat. 

"Never  you  mind!"  roared  the  Captain,  when  he 
heard  the  angry  voices.  "I'm  running  this  ship,  and 
I'm  going  to  burn  anything  I  like.  Wet  it  down  and 
[190] 


2f 


GEORGE  SOMERS 


"Finding  is  Keeping" 

dump  it  in;  and  if  the  dust  chokes  you,  put  wet  gunny- 
sacks  over  your  heads.  It  won't  hurt  you.  I  only 
wish  there  was  more  of  the  same  stuff  to  burn." 

"This  is  the  saddest  day  of  my  life,"  said  Doctor 
Quaritch,  as  he  walked  along  the  deck.  "I  never 
thought  to  see  the  dear  old  Modesto  so  dismantled. 
Why,  she  couldn't  look  much  worse  if  she  was  one  of 
those  old  hulks  lying  in  the  Oakland  Creek.  It's  too 
bad  —  too  bad. " 

He  must  have  been  deeply  moved,  for  he  let  his  pipe 
go  out  three  or  four  times,  and  once  he  blew  his  nose 
very  loudly. 

Just  before  going  below  I  chanced  to  be  near  some 
of  the  crew  who  did  not  observe  me,  and  I  overheard  a 
few  remarks  that  set  my  thoughts  flying  in  another 
direction. 

"  There'll  be  a  big  bonus  for  the  man  that  finds  it," 
said  a  pantryman,  prying  away  at  a  door- jamb. 

"  Of  course  the'  will/3  said  his  mate. 

"  The  young  feller's  easy.  Whoever  finds  it  will  git 
one  o'  them  eight  sacks." 

"  I'd  make  sure  of  a  couple  of  'em,"  said  another  man. 

"  How'd  ye  do  that  ?  " 

"Why,  I  guess  I'd  hold  out  two,  or  mebbe  three. 
[191] 


The  Lure  o9  Gold 

He'd  never  know  the  difference.  He'd  think  the  other 
feller  stole  'em." 

"  Are  all  the  passengers  on  ?  " 

"Yes,  every  one  of  'em,  an'  they're  all  a-lookin'  for 
it.  Wouldn't  it  be  great  if  you  an'  me  should  find  it, 
partner  ?  " 

"That's  right;  and  findin'  is  keepin',  says  I." 

I  passed  along,  my  senses  all  alert  and  my  hands 
clenched  in  impatience  in  which  righteous  anger  played 
no  small  part.  Here  was  a  fine  state  of  affairs.  Every 
man  aboard  that  ship  —  and  not  a  few  of  them  doubtless 
as  unscrupulous  as  Somers  and  Trust  —  was  eagerly 
seeking  for  my  gold.  Might  not  that  explain  some  of 
the  zeal  that  had  everywhere  been  manifest  among  the 
busy  workers  who  were  prying  off  boards  and  planking  ? 
I  could  see  them  all  peering  under  each  piece  of  wood 
they  detached  —  searching,  searching  for  those  eight 
bags  of  gold  dust,  and  eagerly  rushing  to  the  next  piece 
and  quickly  uplifting  it.  How  they  must  begrudge 
the  loss  of  time  occasioned  by  carrying  the  torn-off 
lumber  to  the  chute.  What  if  the  treasure  should  be 
pounced  upon  by  one  of  those  many  disappointed 
miners,  would  it  not  prove  too  great  a  temptation  for 
him  ?  It  made  me  shudder  to  think  of  the  many  ad- 
[192] 


"Finding  is  Keeping" 

venturers  —  men  who  had  been  mere  camp-followers, 
leeches  upon  the  lucky  and  the  industrious  —  the 
gamblers,  the  monte-players,  the  sharpers,  who  were 
returning  to  a  warmer  climate  for  the  winter  season. 
These  men  would  not  hesitate  to  put  into  force  the  rule 
of  "finding  is  keeping."  Yes,  the  riff-raff,  the  rag 
tag  and  the  bobtail  who  had  been  mere  idlers  on  the 
golden  beach,  and  whom  we  had  on  board  in  plenty  — 
"finding  is  keeping"  would  be  a  rule  easy  of  applica 
tion  with  them  in  a  place  where  they  had  had  to  work 
so  hard  with  axe  and  saw  and  cold  chisel. 


[193] 


XVII 


IN  THE  LOWER  HOLD 

r 

I  HURRIED  down  into  the  lower  hold  after  the  Doc 
tor,  cheered  somewhat  by  my  remembrance  of  what 
had  been  said  about  the  unlikelihood  of  the  missing 
treasure  being  secreted  anywhere  above  deck.  This 
seemed  to  me  a  logical  idea,  and  as  there  were  but  two 
places  where  the  work  of  demolition  was  going  on  at 
present  —  in  the  after  deck-house  and  in  the  lower  hold 
—  I  had  for  the  time  to  concern  myself  about  the  lower 
hold  only.  On  my  way  down  I  passed  Max  Fishley. 
He  was  waiting  his  turn  to  climb  up  the  hatchway 
ladder  as  I  was  passing  down.  When  I  made  out  his 
ugly  head  below  me  I  could  not  help  thinking  that  it 
would  be  no  great  sin  if  I  should  let  go  my  hold  upon 
the  ladder  and  plump  down  upon  him  with  my  heels. 
But  such  an  act  would  serve  no  purpose  other  than 
the  possible  extinction  of  a  rogue  before  his  time.  So 
I  passed  down  and  by  him  coolly  enough,  and  was  soon 
at  work  with  Doctor  Quaritch,  cutting  off  rivet  heads 
with  my  hammer  and  cold  chisel. 
[194] 


In  the  Lower  Hold 

But  the  new  phase  of  the  affair  kept  haunting  me, 
and  as  I  glanced  about  where  the  lanterns  twinkled  in 
the  great  musty  hold,  and  many  feet  crunched  the  glass 
of  the  broken  bottles,  I  could  not  help  thinking  that 
while  all  these  men  were  intent  upon  the  work  of  tear 
ing  out  the  planks  and  stanchions  to  supply  the  steamer 
with  fuel,  they  were  far  more  eagerly  interested  in  the 
keen  search  for  my  eight  bags  of  gold  dust. 

"That's  no  doubt  exactly  the  way  things  stand," 
said  Doctor  Quaritch,  when  I  told  him  what  I  had  over 
heard  and  of  my  fears.  "  They're  all  on  the  lookout. 
It  must  have  come  from  letting  those  deckhands  help 
us  in  our  first  search  down  there.  That  was  gossiped 
all  about,  of  course.  News  like  that  travels  fast  on 
shipboard.  We  should  have  been  more  careful.  I'll 
tell  Nason." 

He  went  over  and  whispered  to  the  first  officer. 
They  held  quite  a  conference,  and  when  the  Doctor 
came  back  he  took  the  first  occasion  to  tell  me  quietly 
that  Mr.  Nason  had  promised  to  keep  a  sharp  eye  on 
the  workers,  and  that  if  any  of  the  officers  saw  any  one 
trying  to  carry  out  anything  that  looked  like  the  treas 
ure,  he  would  pounce  down  upon  him  like  a  hawk. 

"Speaking  of  the  other  officers,"  said  I,  "does  he 
[195] 


The  Lure  o'  Gold 

still  think  that  Max  Fishley  has  nothing  to  do  with  the 
hiding  of  the  gold  ?  " 

"  I  discussed  that  matter  with  him,"  replied  the  Doc 
tor,  "  but  he  waved  me  off,  saying  that  if  we  wanted  to 
bring  any  such  absurd  charges  against  Fishley,  we'd 
have  to  wait  until  we  reached  port." 

"When,"  said  I,  bitterly,  "  he'll  no  doubt  escape  scot 
free,  gold  dust  and  all." 

"  Oh,  don't  worry  about  that,  John,"  was  the  suave 
reply.  "  I  guess  Captain  Head  will  do  the  square  thing, 
as  he  sees  it." 

"I  hope  so,"  said  I,  "but  there's  so  much  going  on 
aboard  this  ship  beside  the  workings  of  justice,  that 
I—" 

"  What  have  they  got  over  there  ?  "  broke  in  the  Doc 
tor,  stepping  forward  to  where  two  of  the  passengers 
were  examining  some  object  they  had  taken  from  a 
newly  made  hole  in  the  low  casing  that  ran  all  about 
the  hold  for  two  or  three  feet  above  the  floor. 

"What  is  it?"  I  cried,  rushing  forward.  A  dozen 
others  of  the  party  of  workers,  among  them  Trust  and 
Somers,  were  already  about  the  passengers  who  had 
made  the  discovery. 

"They've  found  the  dust!"  piped  a  shrill  treble. 
[196] 


In  the  Lower  Hold 

"They've  found  the  dust!"  repeated  a  deep-toned 
bass,  and  all  hands  sprang  toward  the  place  of  the  dis 
covery. 

The  finders  of  the  supposed  treasure  had  undone  a 
tightly  tied  package  and  were  unrolling  it  at  the  com 
mand  of  Mr.  Nason,  who  had  immediately  taken  a 
lively  interest  in  the  discovery  and  had  tried  his  best 
to  keep  back  the  curious  crowd. 

"  Wai,  all  that  there  gold  ain't  in  that  little  bundle," 
remarked  one  miner  to  another. 

"No,  unless  that's  all  the'  is  left  of  it  after  goin' 
through  the  mill,"  said  another. 

There  were  a  few  minutes  of  suspense  during  which 
I  worked  my  way  to  the  side  of  the  first  officer  and 
looked  down  at  the  object  on  which  all  eyes  were  bent. 
As  it  was  unrolled  it  seemed  to  be  a  seaman's  old  blouse, 
and  in  its  innermost  fold  the  eager  searchers  were  re 
warded  by  the  sight  of  something  that  gleamed  in  the 
lantern  light.  This  something  was  held  up  to  view. 

"Nothin'  but  an  old  whisky  bottle!"  groaned  one 
of  the  expectant  crowd.  "Jest  an  old  dead  soldier." 

"Fall  back  there,  men!"  commanded  Mr.  Nason, 
"  and  get  to  work." 

The  men  resumed  their  places. 
[197] 


The  Lure  o'  Gold 

"Mighty  glad  that  blear-eyed  Arizonian  didn't  find 
the  stuff  that  time,"  I  heard  one  of  the  passengers  re 
mark  to  a  man  at  his  side. 

"  So'm  I.  But  if  it  had  been  it,  he  wasn't  very  smart. 
He  could  'a'  let  it  lay  there  a  while  and  took  it  out  when 
nobody  was  a-lookin'.  He  wasn't  very  smart." 

This  remark  was  very  disconcerting  to  me.  It 
showed  that  the  doctrine  of  "finding  is  keeping"  was 
too  freely  and  fully  held  aboard  the  Modesto  to  assure 
the  owner  of  lost  treasure  of  any  interest  he  might  have 
in  it  unless  he  was  capable  of  exerting  an  unremitting 
vigilance. 

I  felt  sick  and  disgusted  when  I  thought  of  how 
lightly  my  fellow-passengers  treated  my  ownership  of 
the  missing  gold.  It  seemed  to  me  that  between  some 
of  them  and  the  pirates  I  had  so  strongly  execrated 
there  was  but  little  choice. 

By  noon  of  the  next  day  the  lower  hold  had  been  en 
tirely  stripped  of  whatever  it  could  afford  in  the  way 
of  fuel,  and  every  shovelful  of  coal  screenings  and  wheat 
sif tings  had  been  scraped  from  the  concrete  bottom. 

I  watched  the  men  taking  up  the  last  plank,  and 
heaved  a  deep  sigh  as  I  saw  that  on  its  removal  I  was 
no  nearer  than  before  to  the  recovery  of  my  lost  gold. 
[198] 


In  the  Lower  Hold 

It  might,  I  thought,  have  been  taken  out  by  thievish 
passengers  or  ship's  men  when  no  one  was  looking.  I 
had  worked  and  watched  all  night  long,  and  had  seen 
nothing  to  arouse  my  suspicions  as  to  any  one  finding 
and  making  away  with  it.  But  the  workers  had  come 
and  gone,  toiling  in  short  shifts,  and  I  could  not  see 
all  that  was  going  forward.  When  I  communicated 
my  fears  to  Mr.  Nason,  he  laughed. 

"  Oh,  they  couldn't  have  taken  out  any  of  your 
treasure,  John.  It  would  be  heavy  and  unmanageable 
stuff  for  them  to  handle  without  being  noticed;  and 
somebody  would  have  reported  them." 

I  was  cheered  in  a  measure  by  what  he  said.  I 
asked  him  where  the  work  would  be  carried  on  next. 

"In  the  main  freight-hold,  between-decks,"  he  re 
plied,  pointing  his  finger  upward.  "We'll  hoist  the 
wood  up  on  deck  and  send  it  down  the  chute." 

I  was  feeling  weak  and  miserable  because  of  lack  of 
sleep.  My  hands,  which  had  been  cut  in  many  places 
by  the  broken  glass,  were  moist  with  nervous  sweat, 
and  my  throat  was  sore  from  the  effect  of  damps  and 
draughts. 

When  the  Doctor  came  down  to  work  beside  me 
between-decks,  where  the  ring  of  hammers  upon  rivet 
[199] 


The  Lure  o'  Gold 

heads  was  already  heard  and  planks  were  being  pried 
up,  I  insisted  upon  his  going  back  into  the  sunshine. 
He  looked  jaded  and  listless,  and  I  felt  guilty  to  think 
that  his  friendship  for  me  had  kept  him  down  in  the 
dreary  lower  hold  so  long,, 

"  Well,  I  do  feel  a  bit  knocked  about,"  said  the  Doc 
tor,  "  and  seeing  that  you  insist,  I'll  go  up  for  a  while. 
I  can  swing  an  axe  at  that  deck-house;  and  it  might  be," 
he  added,  "seeing  that  the  gold  wasn't  found  in  the 
lower  hold  and  may  not  be  in  this  one,  that  it  will  be 
just  as  well  to  keep  a  lookout  up  there  after  all." 

"  You're  right,"  said  I,  glad  to  think  that  his  kindly 
interest  in  my  affairs  should  find  practical  expression 
without  discommoding  him. 

I  do  not  know  whether  it  was  that  the  passengers 
and  crew  had  learned  the  trick  of  it  and  could  work 
with  better  expedition,  or  whether  their  lust  for  the  gold 
had  grown  stronger,  but  the  planks  of  the  freight -deck 
on  which  they  were  now  laboring  were  torn  up  much 
more  rapidly  than  were  the  others.  I  am  inclined  to 
think  it  was  as  much  due  to  one  of  these  causes  as  to 
the  other.  I  could  see  the  eagerly  peering  eyes  of  some 
of  the  nearer  workers  as  they  held  their  lanterns  under 
each  plank  that  was  being  uplifted,  and  I  knew  what 
[200] 


In  the  Lower  Hold 

they  were  seeking  for  there.  I  was  kept  under  a  severe 
nervous  tension  hour  by  hour  as  the  work  progressed. 
My  eyes  ached  from  the  strain  that  was  put  upon  them. 
My  head  was  dizzy  at  times.  Just  how  much  of  this 
sort  of  thing  I  could  stand  I  did  not  know,  but  as  I 
look  back  upon  those  harassing  experiences  now,  I 
do  not  think  that  I  stopped  for  one  moment  to  consider 
what  effect  the  loss  of  sleep  and  the  never-ending  men 
tal  perturbation  might  have  upon  me. 


[201] 


XVIII 


THE  HEAT  OF  THE  GOLD-HUNT 

r  ' 

IT  was  rip  and  tear,  clink  and  clank.  Where  the 
planks  were  short,  as  they  were  in  some  sections  of  the 
floor,  there  was  a  scramble  of  the  workers  to  see  who 
could  raise  the  most  of  them.  I  saw  one  man  lie  flat 
upon  the  deck  and  run  his  long  arm  back  under  the 
flooring  and  move  it  all  about,  and  I  heard  some  of  the 
passengers  expostulating : 

" That  ain't  fair!" 

"  Aw !     He  wants  to  hog  it  all ! " 

"  Let  up  on  fudgin'  there,  you ! " 

The  man  against  whom  all  this  was  aimed  rolled 
over  and  arose,  and  in  the  light  of  a  lantern  I  saw  his 
face.  It  was  that  of  my  worthy  friend  Bill  of  the 
lighter.  During  all  the  progress  of  the  search,  which, 
from  the  remarks  I  had  heard,  seemed  to  constitute 
one  prolonged  indignity  to  me,  my  blood  had  not  boiled 
quite  so  fiercely  as  it  did  when  I  saw  that  fellow  Bill 
there  between-decks,  and  knew  that  he  was  so  bent 


The  Heat  of  the  Gold-Hunt 

upon  finding  my  treasure.  There  were  others,  no 
doubt,  just  as  anxious  to  find  it  as  Bill,  but  not  even 
the  rascally  Trust  was  as  odious  to  me  as  the  man  who 
had  so  coolly  and  deliberately  pushed  my  treasure-box 
off  the  lighter  and  sunk  it  in  the  Bering  sea.  It  was, 
to  my  way  of  reasoning,  the  worst  of  all  the  offenses  in 
connection  with  the  robbery.  I  was  on  the  point  of 
speaking  to  Mr.  Nason  and  asking  him  to  transfer  Bill 
to  the  work  on  the  deckhouse,  when  Max  Fishley  came 
down  and  relieved  the  first  officer,  who  immediately 
left  the  hold. 

Mr.  Nason  had  been  very  gentlemanly  in  his  treat 
ment  of  the  passengers,  but  Max  Fishley  began  ordering 
them  about  as  though  they  were  so  many  coolies.  This 
they  very  plainly  resented,  but  the  green-eyed  third 
mate  had  not  discernment  enough  to  note  the  effect  of 
his  bearishness  upon  the  passengers.  I  felt  that  on  the 
first  occasion  that  might  arise  they  would  make  matters 
interesting  for  Mr.  Fishley. 

Remarkable  as  it  may  seem,  in  view  of  the  slow 
progress  made  in  the  lower  hold,  all  the  planking 
and  lining  between  decks  was  removed  in  a  day. 
This,  I  thought,  was  not  in  any  way  due  to  the 
officious  supervision  of  Mr.  Fishley,  but  to  the  in- 
[203] 


The  Lure  o'  Gold 

creased  interest  the  passengers  took  in  the  search  for 
the  treasure. 

As  soon  as  it  was  apparent  to  me  that  the  gold  was 
not  to  be  found  between-decks  the  tension  relaxed  for  a 
time,  and  when  the  passengers  went  on  deck  for  a  few 
hours'  rest  I  lay  on  a  heap  of  tattered  canvas  in  a  corner 
and  slept  soundly  until  I  heard  a  call : 

"All  first  watch  to  the  forehold!" 

Now  I  was  in  the  first  watch  and  it  behooved  me  to 
be  stirring,  but  I  did  so  slowly  enough.  When  I  sat 
up  and  looked  about  me  a  scene  of  sad  desolation  met 
my  eye.  Over  the  bestrewn  and  littered  deck  I  could 
see  what  remained  of  the  ruined  and  despoiled  after- 
house,  and  heard  the  crash  of  the  axes,  the  grating  of 
the  saws  and  the  clink  of  the  hammers  on  the  heads  of 
the  nail-cutters.  My  heart  was  heavy  as  I  saw  Doctor 
Quaritch  walk  wearily  forward  to  where  I  lay,  shaking 
his  head  and  muttering  mournfully. 

"Well,  John,"  he  said,  with  a  thin  smile,  when  he 
saw  me,  "we're  still  over  a  thousand  miles  from  port. 
At  this  rate  it  will  take  nearly  all  the  woodwork  on 
board  to  run  her  in.  Isn't  it  a  pity  ?  Of  course  they 
can  put  a  hundred  ship-carpenters  to  work  and  repair 
the  damage  in  a  week,  but  still  she'll  never  be  the  same 
[204] 


The  Heat  of  the  Gold-Hunt 

—  never  the  same  old  Modesto.     And  have  you  noticed 
how  she  has  come  up  out  of  the  water  ?     Why,  a  good 
lively  gale  now  would  lay  her  on  her  beam-ends  like  a 
log.     How  are  you  feeling  ?  " 

I  told  him  about  my  sore  throat,  and  he  led  me  back 
to  his  stateroom  and  prepared  a  gargle  for  me. 

"  I  suppose,"  he  said,  "  they'll  be  tearing  up  this  room 
before  long.  They're  working  on  31  now  and  this  is 
22.  But  perhaps  something  may  happen  before  then 

—  something  may  happen." 

Through  the  open  doorway  I  heard  the  call  repeated : 

"All  first  watch  to  the  forehold!" 

"Well,  Doctor,"  I  said,  "I  must  get  to  work  again. 
Somebody  will  be  getting  that  gold  dust  and  keeping 
it." 

"  You're  right,"  he  said.  "  We  mustn't  let  up,  I  sup 
pose.  But  there  must  be  at  least  four  days  more  of 
this  —  four  days  more,  unless  something  turns  up." 

As  I  passed  along  the  line  of  doomed  staterooms, 
and  came  to  the  end,  where  the  work  of  demolition  was 
in  progress,  I  noted  that  the  next  room  marked  for 
destruction,  because  of  its  being  nearest  the  one  most 
lately  destroyed,  was  the  cabin  of  the  second  and  third 
officers.  As  I  paused  near  this  cabin  I  saw  a  passenger 
[205] 


The  Lure  o'  Gold 

wrench  the  outside  door  from  its  hinges  and  start  away 
with  it  toward  the  chute. 

"  Here ! "  yelled  Max  Fishley.  "  What  are  yeh  doin'  ? 
Put  that  there  door  back." 

"Why,  I  thought  that  everything  went,"  said  the 
passenger,  returning  with  the  door,  "and  this  is  next 
in  line." 

"  I  don't  care  what  you  thought,"  growled  the  third 
officer,  with  an  oath.  "  You  leave  my  cabin  alone ! " 

"But  Mr.  Lovellsaid—  " 

"I  don't  care  a  little  green  apple  what  Mr.  Lovell 
said.  He's  got  no  business  to  have  my  cabin  tore 
down.  Don't  you  see,  I  had  that  partition  sawed  off 
and  left  there?  I  want  the  other  side  sawed  off,  too. 
I  want  my  room  left  jest  as  it  is  now." 

There  was  a  ripple  of  dissent  among  the  passengers. 

"We've  given  up  our  rooms,"  said  one,  "and  are 
sleeping  on  deck  in  all  that  mess.  And  I  should  think — 

"  I  say  I  don't  care  what  you  think.  Your  thinkin' 
don't  count  for  nothin'  here,"  said  the  mate,  contemp 
tuously. 

"Captain's  orders,"  said  Mr.  Lovell,  coming  up. 
"  Our  room's  got  to  be  cut  down  with  the  rest  of  the 
house.  I'm  just  as  sorry  to  see  it  go  as  you  are,  Max, 
[206] 


The  Heat  of  the  Gold-Hunt 

but  it  wouldn't  be  fair  to  the  rest  to  let  it  stand  and  cut 
down  the  others." 

"  Well,  if  it's  got  to  go  I  want  my  own  men  to  do  it. 
I  want  ship's  hands  and  not  these  haymakers.  I  got 
things  in  there  I  want  taken  out  before  the  work  is 
begun." 

"  All  right,"  said  Mr.  Lovell,  good-naturedly.  "  Only 
I  advise  you  to  be  more  respectful  to  these  passengers. 
They're  doing  this  to  be  obliging,  and  they're  working 
very  hard." 

"  Oh,  I  know  and  you  know  what  they're  workin* 
so  hard  fer.  It  ain't  to  keep  the  fires  a-goin'.  It's  — 

"Oh,  stow  your  jaw,  old  man!"  called  the  second 
officer  in  his  great,  good-humored  voice.  "  Begin  on 
this  next  cabin,  gentlemen,"  he  said  to  the  passengers. 

Although  I  knew  that  Mr.  Nason  wanted  all  his 
hands  down  below,  I  was  lax  enough  in  my  duty  to  slip 
back  to  the  Doctor  and  ask  him  if  he  would  carefully 
note  everything  that  was  taken  out  of  the  second  and 
third  officers'  cabin.  I  told  him  I  suspected  from  Max 
Fishley's  actions  that  the  gold  might  have  been  stowed 
away  in  there. 

"It's  unlikely,"  said  Doctor  Quaritch,  "very  un 
likely,  for  Fishley  must  have  taken  fright  after  what 
[207] 


The  Lure  o  Gold 

we  reported  of  him  to  the  Captain.  He  wouldn't  keep 
the  gold  where  it  could  be  so  easily  found,  in  case  he 
was  actually  charged  with  having  it  in  his  possession. 
But  I'll  keep  a  sharp  lookout  just  the  same.  I  think 
it's  only  the  natural  selfishness  of  the  beast  that  makes 
him  want  to  keep  his  cabin  from  destruction.  He's 
that  kind,  you  know." 

As  I  went  below,  I  brooded  over  the  plain  significance 
of  the  ironic  remark  let  fall  by  Max  Fishley  as  to  why 
the  passengers  were  working  so  hard.  It  emphasized 
the  strong  feeling  of  distrust  I  had  already  entertained. 
While  there  might  be  an  honest  man  here  and  there 
among  these  disappointed  miners  and  among  the  crew, 
I  had  reason  to  believe  that  the  rule  of  the  rogue  that 
"finding  is  keeping"  had  been  gaining  steadily,  until 
at  the  present  time  my  chances  for  the  recovery  of  the 
treasure  were  slimmer  than  ever. 

The  gold-hunt  —  for  it  was  plainly  little  else  —  had 
been  led  on  by  all  sorts  of  rumors  and  reports,  among 
them  one  that  made  it  clear  that  I  had  never  had  any 
just  claim  to  the  treasure;  and  it  was  argued  that  as  it 
had  passed  out  of  my  hands  it  was  clearly  the  property 
of  whosoever  should  discover  it.  I  heard  one  report 
to  the  effect  that  the  Captain  had  said  the  gold  should 
[208] 


The  Heat  of  the  Gold-Hunt 

belong  to  the  man  who  found  it;  and  though  this  was 
at  variance  with  the  attitude  of  the  other  officers,  it  was 
accepted  by  nearly  all  on  board,  in  their  blind,  unrea 
soning  lust  for  the  treasure. 

It  was  clear  that  if  the  search  went  on  long  enough 
some  one  would  lay  his  hands  upon  those  eight  bags 
of  dust;  and  that  these  would  be  covetous,  unyielding 
hands  I  made  not  the  slightest  doubt. 


[209] 


XIX 

THE  STEAM  COLLIER 

r 

THE  forehold  of  the  Modesto  was  not  large,  as  she 
was  built  at  the  time  when  it  was  considered  best  to 
stow  aft  as  much  of  a  steamer's  cargo  as  possible,  that 
the  propeller  might  be  left  deep  under  water.  The 
passengers  and  crew  attacked  the  work  with  surprising 
vigor,  considering  their  worn  condition.  Here,  as  in 
the  after  hold,  I  kept  vigilant  watch  of  the  movement 
of  the  passengers  while  doing  as  much  work  as  I  could 
in  providing  fuel. 

The  eagerness  of  the  searchers  for  the  gold,  built 
upon  an  ever-increasing  cupidity,  had  become  some 
thing  feverish.  The  side  of  the  forehold  had  been 
cased  to  protect  some  special  freight  that  had  been 
taken  up  to  Nome  in  that  part  of  the  ship.  This  casing 
was  composed  of  surfaced  pine  boards,  six  inches  wide 
and  one  inch  thick.  The  boards  were  simply  nailed 
to  a  temporary  wooden  framework,  and  this  lining 
structure  afforded  but  slight  resistance  to  the  attacks 


The  Steam  Collier 

with  the  axes  and  other  tools  wielded  by  the  busy 
workers. 

I  saw  Trust,  who  had  managed  to  exchange  his 
heavy  mattock  for  a  light  axe,  ripping  off  the  casing 
boards  in  a  way  that  would  have  astonished  some  of 
his  old  idling,  gaming  friends;  but  Somers  was  not  in 
the  hold,  and  I  wondered  if  he  were  bent  on  individual 
search  in  some  other  part  of  the  vessel. 

"There's  no  gold  in  here,"  I  heard  a  man  call  out, 
as  the  last  piece  of  casing  was  torn  off  with  a  loud  creak. 
"  If  it's  in  the  hold  at  all,  it's  under  what  planks  there 
is  left  in  the  flooring." 

But  when,  after  another  half  hour,  the  floor  planks 
were  all  torn  up,  the  whole  crew  concentrating  their 
energies  on  the  last  one  and  darting  quick,  anxious 
glances  under  it,  there  was  a  call  of  "What's  the  next 
place,  Mr.  Nason  ? " 

"The  steerage,"  replied  the  mate,  shortly.  And 
there  was  a  rush  to  that  part  of  the  vessel,  which  was 
near  at  hand. 

My  throat  was  now  aching  again,  and  I  started  for 
the  stateroom  to  make  a  new  application  of  the  Doc 
tor's  gargle.  Beside  a  piece  of  torn  canvas  that  had 
been  stuck  up  by  some  of  the  passengers  for  a  night 
[211] 


The  Lure  o  Gold 

shelter  I  saw  Trust  and  Bill.  I  crept  up  behind  the 
canvas  and  lay  there  listening,  in  the  hope  of  hearing 
something  to  my  advantage. 

"And  the  next  time  yeh  git  anybody  to  go  in  with 
yeh  on  a  lay  like  that  there,"  came  in  angry  tones  from 
Bill,  "  lookout  yeh  don't  git  somebody  like  me  that  can 
put  yeh  out  o'  business,  if  he  wants  to,  in  three  shakes. 
Some  men  will  stand  a  lot  o'  foolin',  but  nobody  ever 
fooled  me  more'n  oncet,  an*  they  allus  was  sorry  they 
tried  it  even  then.  Sendin'  a  man  off  on  a  schooner 
to  wait  for  you  to  bring  aboard  — 

"  Sh ! "  cautioned  Trust.  "  You  musn't  talk  so  loud. 
We're  in  deep  enough  already." 

"  Yes,  you  an'  Joe  is,  an'  I'm  derned  glad  of  it." 
"  Well,  you're  no  better  off.     You'll  be  landed  along 
with  us  if  we  ever  get  to  San  Francisco.     The  boy  has 
told  the  Captain  who  you  are." 

"  The  devil  he  has !     How  d'yeh  know  ?  " 
"  Oh,  I've  got  ways  of  getting  inside  information." 
"  Yes,  but  that  third  mate  —  he's  fooled  you  good  — 
that's  what  he  has,"  chuckled  Bill.     "  He's  too  many 
for  you,  ain't  he  now  ?   He's  got  the  stuff  hid  away  from 
yeh.     You'll  never  see  it,  nor  red-faced  Joe  neither. 
Your  game  is  played,  an'  yeh  got  what  was  a-comin', 
[212] 


The  Steam  Collier 

didn't  yeh?"  he  went  on  tauntingly.  "But  if  that 
there  kid  blabbed  about  me  I'll  chuck  him  over  the 
side,  jest  as  I  did  his  box.  Say,  look  here,  Pete,  on  the 
square  now,  did  you  put  up  that  there  job  on  me  ?  Yeh 
might  as  well  own  up  —  ye're  done  for  anyway.  Did 
yeh  put  up  the  job  ?  " 

"No,  I  didn't  —  honest  Indian,"  said  Trust,  delib 
erately,  with  falsehood  sounding  in  every  note.  "Joe 
lost  his  nerve  at  the  last  moment.  He  wouldn't  run 
the  launch  out,  and  I  didn't  know  anything  about 
handling  her.  So  I  couldn't  get  aboard  with  the  stuff." 

"  I  wish  I  could  believe  half  you  say,"  said  Bill,  "  but 
I  don't.  You  never  ring  true.  But  your  game  is  up 
now.  You'll  never  git  them  hooks  o'  yourn  into  that 
there  gold  agin.  Fishley's  got  it  stored  away  where 
nobody  will  find  it  —  that  feller  used  to  be  the  best 
opium  smuggler  on  the  City  o'  Peking,  an'  you  can  bet 
he  knows  how  to  stow  things  away  safe  out  o'  sight  an' 
git  'em  ashore  on  dark  nights.  You  might  as  well  give 
up  —  you'll  only  blister  them  neat,  ladylike,  gambler 
hands  o'  yourn  for  nawthin'." 

"  But  what  are  you  searching  so  hard  for  yourself  ?  " 
asked  Trust.     "You're  right  in  the  general  hunt  with 
the  rest.     They're  all  looking  for  the  gold." 
[213] 


The  Lure  o  Gold 

"  I  know  that,  but  it's  jest  a  kind  o'  pastime  with  me. 
I  ain't  got  no  notion  o'  findin'  nawthin'.  But  I  can't 
hardly  help  lookin'  when  everybody  is  so  anxious-like 
an'  up  an'  at  it  all  the  time.  But  I'm  glad  Fishley's  fooled 
yeh.  It  serves  yeh  right.  Yeh'll  git  about  fifteen 
years  for  this,  that's  what  yeh'll  git;  an'  I'm  glad  of  it." 

Bill  turned  and  went  away  to  join  the  fuel-grubbers 
in  the  steerage,  and  as  Trust  followed  him,  with  a  slow 
and  thoughtful  step,  I  dodged  out  of  my  hiding-place 
and  got  my  gargle.  Soon  I  was  on  my  way  to  the 
steerage.  Now  all  along  I  had  had  hopes  of  the  steer 
age.  It  was  true  that  most  of  the  berth-frames  and 
odd  stanchions  had  been  removed  already,  but  there 
still  remained  the  flooring  and  some  casing  in  a  super 
ficial  after-partition  that  was  independent  of  the  bulk 
head. 

I  ran  to  the  corner  that  had  been  occupied  by  Somers 
and  Trust,  and  chopped  away  at  the  floor  there,  look 
ing  about  closely  for  any  sign  of  a  panel  such  as  had 
been  discovered  in  the  lower  hold.  Trust,  together 
with  his  mate,  who  had  rejoined  him,  devoted  his  ener 
gies  to  a  corner  farthest  away  from  the  one  they  had 
slept  in,  and  paid  no  attention  to  the  work  begun  in 
their  old  corner. 

[214] 


The  Steam  Collier 

This  was  rather  a  disheartening  circumstance,  for 
had  the  gold  been  hidden  near  the  place  where  their 
berths  had  been,  they  would  surely  have  burrowed 
about  that  quarter.  I  had  toiled  hard,  despite  the 
fact  that  my  axe-handle  had  become  splintered  a  little 
and  was  hurting  my  hand  at  every  stroke.  I  paid  closer 
attention  to  the  two  pirates  and  became  at  last  thor 
oughly  convinced,  by  the  way  they  worked  and  by  the 
looks  in  their  faces,  that  they  had  not  the  slightest  no 
tion  of  the  actual  whereabouts  of  the  treasure.  Like 
myself  and  the  others  aboard,  they  knew  that  the  gold 
was  in  the  ship,  but  where  to  find  it  was  another  matter. 

Relaxing  my  vigilance  for  a  while  from  sheer  weari 
ness,  I  asked  Mr.  Nason  to  excuse  me,  and  went  up  on 
the  hurricane  deck,  where  I  lay  for  a  moment  near  the 
great  naked  square  in  the  painted  canvas,  where  the 
after  staterooms,  the  smoking-room  and  rear  house 
had  stood.  The  debris  that  littered  the  deck  had  be 
come  a  general  mass  that  lay  helter-skelter,  its  fag-ends 
of  canvas  and  cordage  whipped  by  the  winds  and  twisted 
fantastically.  I  stretched  out  for  a  quiet  hour  of  rest 
near  a  little  knot  of  passengers,  and  was  lying  flat  on 
my  back  looking  up  into  the  blue  tenuity  of  the  sky, 
when  the  breeze  shifted  a  bit,  bringing  down  some  of 
[215] 


The  Lure  o  Gold 

the  smoke  from  the  funnels,  and  instantly  an  intolerable 
stench  greeted  my  nostrils.  I  sprang  up  and  cried, 
"  What's  that  ?  "  to  the  man  nearest  me. 

"  I  don't  know,"  said  he.  "  Ain't  it  awful  ?  Smells 
like  burning  grease." 

"They're  throwin'  a  lot  of  oleo  into  the  furnace," 
explained  another  passenger. 
"What's  oleo?"  I  asked. 
"  Oleomargarine." 

"Then  we  must  be  somewhere  near  port,"  said  the 
man  I  had  first  addressed,  closing  his  nose  with  his 
fingers.  "They  wouldn't  burn  up  provisions  if  they 
wasn't  near  port." 

"  Oh,  no ;  we're  six  hundred  miles  out  yet,  so  the 
Captain  says;  but  he  swears  he's  goin'  to  run  her  in  in 
the  next  two  days,  if  it  takes  all  the  burnable  stuff  there 
is  aboard.  He's  got  to  do  it.  They've  piled  in  all  the 
lubricating  oil  they  dared  to  use.  Now  they're  burnin' 
that  stinkin'  oleo." 

"Well,  bull  butter  ought  to  make  steam  all  right." 
"You  bet  it  will." 

But  going  forward  I  learned  from  the  second  officer 
that  there  had  been  only  a  few  hundred  pounds  of  oleo 
margarine  burned  —  all  that  could  be  spared  —  and 
[216] 


The  Steam  Collier 

that  the  last  of  this  fuel  had  just  been  thrown  into  the 
furnaces. 

"  We're  chucking  in  a  lot  of  hams  and  sides  of  bacon 
next,"  said  he.  "Chow  will  be  short  on  our  last  day 
out.  But  bacon-burning  don't  bother  me,  for  I  never 
touch  pig  in  any  shape." 

"No,"  observed  the  Doctor,  coming  along,  "it  isn't 
the  best  kind  of  food,  but  men  working  as  hard  as  these 
are  on  this  ship  ought  to  have  something  in  the  way  of 
meat.  Speaking  of  eating,  I'd  like  to  have  my  legs 
under  the  table  at  the  Palace  Grill  just  about  now." 

"Wouldn't  I  though!"  exclaimed  the  second  officer. 
"  If  we  have  good  luck  we'll  be  in  by  to-morrow  night." 

I  saw  the  squat  little  figure  of  the  Jap  coming  along 
the  deck  with  an  instrument  in  his  hand.  It  looked 
something  like  a  zither. 

"That's  his  yo-kin,  as  he  calls  it,"  remarked  Doctor 
Quaritch.  "  It  took  him  nearly  a  month  to  make  it." 
He  took  the  instrument  from  the  boy's  hands  as  he 
came  up.  "  See  how  ingeniously  it's  constructed." 

Mr.  Lovell  and  I  admired  the  neat  workmanship  of 
the  yo-kin,  which  was  flat  and  made  of  wood,  prettily 
painted  over  with  a  brave  show  of  decoration.  In 
stead  of  strings  the  yo-kin  had  wires  of  various  lengths, 
[217] 


The  Lure  o  Gold 

which  the  cunning  Jap  had  taken  from  broom-handles, 
and  twisted  around  neat  hardwood  thumb-screws. 

"What  are  you  going  to  do  with  this?"  asked  the 
Doctor  of  Yohara.  "It's  no  time  to  be  playing  it  on 
deck.  If  the  Captain  saw  you  with  it  he'd  make  music 
for  you." 

"  Oh,  I  no  going  play  now,"  said  the  Jap,  sadly,  shak 
ing  his  head. 

"What  then?" 

"I  putting  it  into  chute." 

"  The  dickens  you  are,"  exclaimed  the  Doctor. 

"  Yes,  I  sinking  it  burn  very  well  —  make  good  fire 
for  the  ship  for  one  minute." 

"  How  many  miles  do  you  think  we'd  run  on  it,  Yo 
hara  ?  "  snickered  the  second  officer. 

"Don't  laugh  at  him,"  said  the  Doctor,  seriously. 
"Don't  you  see  what  a  sacrifice  he's  making?  This 
yo-kin  is  the  apple  of  his  eye.  It  took  him  weeks  and 
weeks  to  make  it.  It's  the  only  treasure  he's  got,  and 
he's  willing  to  part  with  it  for  the  good  of  the  ship. 
Now  I  call  that  a  genuine  sacrifice  —  a  piece  of  down 
right  good-heartedness . ' ' 

"So  it  is,"  said  Mr.  Lovell,  "and  I  shouldn't  have 
laughed,  only  it's  so  perfectly  —  " 
[218] 


The  Steam  Collier 

"Yohara!"  called  the  Doctor  to  the  Jap,  who  had 
walked  solemnly  away  during  the  last  words.  "  Come 
back.  You  don't  have  to  burn  your  yo-kin.  You're  a 
good  boy,  and  here's  half  a  dollar  for  you.  Take  the 
yo-kin  back  and  hang  it  up,  and  if  anybody  attempts  to 
burn  it  I'll  jump  on  him  stiff-legged." 

"I  must  not  burn?"  asked  Yohara,  pocketing  the 
coin  and  patting  his  instrument  affectionately.  "Oh, 
I  do  not  want  to  burn !  I  love  yo-kin  to  my  heart ;  but 
I  sinking  I  must  burn." 

"  No  —  no  —  nothing  of  the  sort,"  the  Doctor  in 
sisted  stoutly.  "I'll  burn  my  instrument  case  first. 
Take  it  back  and  hang  it  up." 

"  Sank  you,  sir  —  sank  you,"  said  Yohara,  in  his 
soft  little  speech,  and  starting  back  to  his  coop  near 
the  scullery.  "I  very  glad  I  must  not  burn.  But  if 
ship  cannot  go  to  San  Fran-cis-co,  I  will  burn  —  I  will 
burn."  He  hugged  the  yo-kin  close  to  his  breast  and 
went  away. 

"Talk  about  your  self-denial,"  said  my  medical 
friend,  "  doesn't  that  beat  all  ?  " 

"  You're  right,"  said  Mr.  Lovell,  "  and  I'm  ashamed 
to  think  I  laughed.     Hope  he  didn't  notice  it.     They're 
mighty  sensitive  little  fellows,  those  Japs." 
[219] 


The  Lure  o  Gold 

"They  are  that.  Why,  even  the  grown  men  and 
women  are  just  like  children.  And  they're  affectionate. 
No  matter  how  much  I  scold  that  chap  when  we're 
ashore  —  for  he's  kind  of  careless  sometimes  —  kind 
of  careless,  you  know  —  he  just  bows  his  head  and 
takes  it  all  like  a  lamb.  Never  says  a  word  back." 

"Yes,"  said  the  second  officer,  "I've  seen  enough 
of  'em  to  notice  how  soft-hearted  they  are.  Three 
years  ago  in  Yokohama  I  —  Hullo  !  What  ship's 
that?" 

He  pointed  to  the  northeast. 

Down  on  the  horizon  we  saw  a  black  smoke-drift 
and  low-standing  topmasts. 

"It's  a  big  steamer,"  said  Doctor  Quaritch.  "I 
wonder  if  we  can't  get  some  coal  now." 

"  Maybe  a  little  if  he  would  spare  it.  But  he  might 
n't  be  obliging,"  said  Mr.  Lovell. 

We  all  went  forward  to  where  Captain  Head  was 
closely  scanning  the  steamer. 

"It's  the  San  Bernardino  coming  down  from  Na- 
naimo,  or  I  miss  my  guess,"  said  he,  screwing  down 
his  glass. 

"Why,  she's  a  big  collier,"  said  the  Doctor. 

"Yes,"  said  the  Captain,  sententiously,  but  with  a 
[  220] 


The  Steam  Collier 

world  of  meaning.  "  Carries  about  three  thousand 
tons." 

"  Three  thousand  tons  of  coal  within  sight  of  us," 
exclaimed  the  Doctor,  "  and  we're  burning  up  our 
houses  and  hams!  That's  the  fortune  of  the  sea." 

Within  an  hour  the  San  Bernardino  was  within  easy 
hailing  distance.  We  could  see  her  Captain  on  the 
bridge,  raking  us  fore  and  aft  with  his  glass.  There 
was  an  exchange  of  signals  and  the  two  steamers  slowed 
down. 

"  Want  a  tow,  Captain  ?  "  came  the  voice  of  the  San 
Bernardino's  master. 

"No,"  called  back  Captain  Head,  "but  I'd  like  to 
buy  a  little  coal." 

"Sorry,  but  can't  sell  a  pound." 

"  Not  at  sea-prices  ?  You  can  sell  at  sea-prices, 
can't  you?" 

"  The  owners  don't  allow  it.     Let  me  tow  you  in." 

"  He's  after  salvage,"  muttered  Captain  Head.  "  The 
highbinder!  That  would  mean  forty  per  cent  of  the 
ship  at  the  least  figure.  I'll  see  him  hanged  first." 
Then  he  raised  his  voice :  "  I'll  give  you  forty  dollars  a 
ton!"  he  shouted.  "That's  eight  times  shore  prices." 

"  Very  sorry,  but  we're  a  day  overdue  now,  and  can't 
[221] 


The  Lure  o9  Gold 

wait.  I'll  tow  you  in  for  twenty  thousand  dollars,  and 
say  nothing  about  salvage." 

"  Oh,  yes,  you  will,"  undertoned  the  Captain.  Then 
he  called  out:  "  I'll  give  you  forty  dollars  a  ton." 

"  You're  riding  a  little  high,  ain't  you  ?"  asked  the 
unobliging  master,  satirically.  "Did  you  burn  your 
ballast  ?  Where's  your  masts  and  after  deckhouse  ?  " 

"  Fifty  dollars  a  ton ! "  called  Captain  Head.  "  That's 
as  high  as  I'll  go." 

"Say  twenty  thousand,  and  I'll  pass  you  the  line. 
That's  reasonable." 

"Reasonable?  you  pirate!"  yelled  our  Captain, 
stamping  the  deck  and  cursing  loudly.  "  You  needn't 
take  this  ship  for  any  old  derelict.  Her  engines  are  in 
good  working  order,  and  we're  not  out  of  fuel.  We'll 
get  into  port  as  soon  as  you  do." 

"  Yes,  if  you  put  your  whole  ship  into  your  furnaces," 
laughed  the  Captain  of  the  San  Bernardino;  and  there 
were  echoing  "haw-haws"  from  his  officers.  "What 
are  you  burning  now  that  stinks  so  ?  It  ain't  Welling 
ton  coal,  by  a  long  chalk.  Say  the  word  and  I'll  tie 
you  up  at  the  dock  by  Thursday  night." 

"  No,  sir !  I'll  have  no  dealings  with  a  pirate  of  the 
high  seas.  You've  struck  the  wrong  man  this  voyage. 
[222] 


The  Steam  Collier 

I'll  not  be  held  up  and  robbed  in  cold  blood  by  the  likes 
of  you  —  you  infernal  skinflint !  I'd  rather  burn  my 
ship  than  hand  her  over  to  you." 

And  the  Captain  ran  into  his  cabin  and  banged  the 
door  very  loudly. 


[223 


XX 


IN  THE  SHAFT  ALLEY 


THE  great  collier  headed  away  from  us  and  increased 
her  speed  so  rapidly  that  the  poor,  dismantled  old 
Modesto  soon  fell  behind  and  lost  sight  of  her. 

After  an  hour  or  two  in  his  cabin  the  Captain  came 
on  deck  again  and  did  not  deign  to  look  forward  at  the 
dwindling  drift  of  the  San  Bernardino,  but  walked  up 
and  down,  calling  out  orders  and  making  the  lives  of 
his  officers  and  crew  very  miserable  for  a  while. 

"You  are  the  slowest  lot,"  I  heard  him  complain. 
"  Here,  with  all  these  passengers  helping  you,  you  can't 
give  us  steam  enough  for  more  than  half  speed.  The 
light  stuff's  no  good.  What  we  want  is  more  of  those 
planks.  I  wish  you'd  stop  chasing  around  in  a  circle 
and  do  something.  Get  up  more  planks." 

"  The  planks  are  all  gone,  Captain,"  said  Mr.  Nason. 

"All  gone?" 

"  All  except  what's  in  the  shaft  alley,  and  I  thought — " 

"  Rip  'em  out  —  rip  'em  out !  Don't  be  standing 
[224] 


In  ike  Shaft  Alley 

around  with  the  indicator  running  down  and  the  log 
showing  only  seven  knots.     Rip  'em  out!" 

A  lot  of  us,  with  Mr.  Nason,  rushed  down  into  the 
fire-room  on  our  way  to  the  shaft  alley.  On  the  floor 
of  the  fire-room  was  a  pile  of  the  house  partitions,  doors, 
window-sashes  and  shutters.  These  were  being  flung 
into  the  open  furnace-doors  by  stokers  naked  to  the 
waist,  and  covered  with  sweat  and  dust.  The  head 
fireman  was  bawling  his  orders.  There  was  a  crashing 
of  axes  among  the  larger  pieces  and  a  clanging  of  fur 
nace-doors.  The  fire-room  had  always  been  a  forbid 
ding  nether  world  to  me,  but  never  had  it  seemed  such 
a  reeking,  steaming,  seething,  hot  and  noisy  inferno 
as  now. 

The  firemen  welcomed  the  crowd  of  newcomers,  be 
lieving  that  they  had  come  down  to  relieve  them  from 
their  long  and  arduous  labor  of  feeding  the  insatiable 
furnaces.  When  the  pale  and  weary  toilers  learned 
the  object  of  our  coming,  they  were  loud  in  their  lam 
entations. 

"  Oh,  we  get  a  lot  of  help  from  up  above,  don't  we  ?  " 
growled  one  man,  with  his  arms  full  of  splintered  boards. 

"Expect  us  to  make  sixteen  knots  on  cigar-boxes 
and  kindling-wood." 

[225] 


The  Lure  o'  Gold 

"  Stand  up  to  one  of  these  open  hell-holes  all  day  and 
see  how  you  like  it." 

"They'd  think  it  was  a  picnic." 

"  S'pose  you  could  run  a  month  with  empty  bunkers." 

"Worth  ten  dollars  an  hour." 

"  We'll  fire  again  on  this  ship  —  oh,  yes ! " 

"Why  don't  you  send  down  some  more  glass  to 
burn?" 

And  all  this  accompanied  by  the  hardest  swearing 
I  ever  heard. 

Mr.  Nason,  who  was  anxious  to  get  out  of  range  of 
this  snarling  pack,  dodged  quickly  out  of  the  fire-room 
and  into  the  engine-room,  passing  to  the  shaft-alley 
door.  I  followed  him  closely,  being  uncomfortably 
joggled  by  the  odious  Fishley,  who,  closely  pressed  by 
Somers  and  Trust,  seemed  feverish  in  his  haste  to  get 
into  the  tunnel.  We  entered  the  long,  low,  narrow 
alley,  hurrying  by  a  couple  of  oilers  who  were  growling 
like  the  firemen,  and  at  once  proceeded  to  take  up  the 
first  of  the  planks,  to  the  right  of  the  long,  swiftly  re 
volving  shaft  of  steel  that  ran  back  to  the  stern  of  the 
ship.  It  was  a  tight  place  for  a  gang  of  thirty  men  to 
work  in.  Many  of  them  removed  their  waistcoats, 
and  some  took  off  their  shirts.  We  were  down  in  the 
[226] 


In  the  Shaft  Alley 

very  bottom  of  the  steamer.  If  there  were  any  ventila 
tors  and  if  they  were  doing  any  service  at  all  it  was  not 
perceptible.  The  hot  air  in  the  tunnel  reeked  with 
machine-oil,  and,  with  all  those  breaths  in  there,  it 
soon  became  wretchedly  foul.  A  man  near  me,  who 
was  prying  up  a  plank  with  a  heavy  crowbar,  suddenly 
gave  a  little  gasp,  reeled  and  fell  quietly  into  my  out 
stretched  arms.  Two  of  his  friends  carried  him  out, 
but  they  quickly  returned  and  went  eagerly  to  work. 
In  fact,  in  spite  of  the  bad  air,  the  heat  and  the  oily 
smells,  all  the  men  seemed  remarkably  keen  for  the 
work.  I  noticed  that  Max  Fishley  was  officiously  di 
recting  operations,  and  wondered  how  he  came  to  be 
down  there  while  Mr.  Nason  was  in  command.  My 
mental  comment  on  this  was,  strangely  enough,  fol 
lowed  on  the  instant  by  a  remark  by  the  first  officer, 
who  drew  near  to  Fishley  and  asked,  "  What  are  you 
doing  down  here,  Max  ?  " 

"  Oh,  I  thought  I  could  be  of  some  help.  Don't  you 
want  to  go  on  deck  ?  I'll  take  charge  here.  You  must 
be  nearly  worn  out." 

He  said  this  with  a  gentleness  of  tone  of  which  I  had 
deemed  him  incapable.     It  occurred  to  me  that  he  was 
not  such  a  bad  fellow  after  all. 
[227] 


The  Lure  o  Gold 

"Thank  you,  Max,"  replied  Mr.  Nason.  "The 
Captain  asked  me  to  come  down  here,  but  as  you're  so 
good,  I  will  go  up  on  deck  a  little  while.  The  air  here 
makes  my  head  spin  like  a  top." 

"Sorry  you  don't  feel  good,"  said  Fishley,  sympa 
thetically.  "  Stay  up  as  long  as  you  like.  You  needn't 
come  back  to  the  tunnel  at  all.  We  can  skin  this  stuff 
out  in  a  few  hours." 

As  soon  as  Mr.  Nason  had  gone  it  occurred  to  me 
that  Max  Fishley  had  simply  been  trying  to  get  rid  of 
him. 

The  third  officer  appeared  to  be  much  relieved  and 
not  a  little  elated  by  having  been  left  in  charge  of  the 
work.  As  I  looked  at  his  face  in  the  light  of  the  flicker 
ing  lanterns,  hanging  from  the  low,  grimy  ceiling,  it 
flashed  upon  me  that  the  hidden  gold  must  be  in  that 
shaft  alley,  and  that  Fishley  knew  where  it  was.  I 
walked  up  and  down  the  narrow  lane  in  which  the  long 
shaft  was  steadily  turning,  and  peered  carefully  all 
about.  In  this  occupation  I  was  interrupted  of  a  sud 
den  by  the  third  officer,  who  snarled  forth: 

"  Git  to  work,  or  git  out  o'  this  here  tunnel.  If  you 
ain't  able  to  do  anything  but  walk  around,  I  ain't  got 
no  use  for  yeh.  And  anybody  here,"  he  went  on,  ad- 


In  the  Shaft  Alley 

dressing  the  men,  "  who  wants  fresh  air,  better  go  up  on 
deck.  There's  too  many  in  here  for  comfort  anyway. 
Ye're  all  tumblin'  over  each  other  an'  standin'  on  each 
other's  feet." 

At  this  I  saw  Trust  and  Somers  exchange  glances. 
It  had  no  doubt  occurred  to  them,  as  it  had  instantly 
occurred  to  me,  that  Fishley  would  send  the  whole 
gang  away  if  he  could,  but  that  in  any  event  he  would 
thin  them  out  as  much  as  possible. 

"I'll  bet  a  dollar  he  fixed  them  ventilators,"  said 
Somers  to  Trust,  quietly.  "He  wants  to  choke  us  all 
out." 

"Well,  I  can  stand  it  as  long  as  he  can,"  was  the 
reply. 

Two  men  passed  forward,  panting,  and  left  the  alley. 

"  Leave  that  door  open !"  bawled  a  man  with  an  adze. 

"Don't  you  dare!"  shouted  Fishley.  "Captain's, 
orders  —  very  strict  —  wants  it  kept  closed." 

"You're  a  liar,"  breathed  Trust,  though  not  loud 
enough  for  the  third  officer  to  hear. 

The  door  was  closed,  and  I  felt  as  though  we  were 
all  sealed  up  in  a  great  tin  can.     Most  of  the  men  had 
stripped  themselves   down  to  the  waist,   and  yet  the 
sweat  rolled  from  their  bodies. 
[229] 


The  Lure  o  Gold 

Half  a  dozen  planks  had  been  removed,  but  no  sight 
of  the  treasure  rewarded  the  eyes  of  the  weary  workers. 
Still  they  kept  at  it  diligently,  and,  as  it  seemed  to  me, 
with  a  sort  of  desperate  zeal,  although  half  fainting 
for  want  of  air  and  some  of  them  reeling  blindly.  I 
had  kept  up  my  close  search  of  the  planks — peering, 
peering  for  any  trace  of  a  hiding-place  which  might  be 
disclosed. 

Fishley  had  been  careful  to  keep  the  men  forward, 
and  had  so  directed  their  work  that  none  of  them  had 
any  chance  to  examine  the  after  part  of  the  alley  floor. 
When  he  was  not  observing  me,  I  stooped  low, 
dodged  along  behind  the  shaft  and  stood  away  in  the 
stern,  where  I  could  hear  the  propeller  pounding  the 
water.  There  was  a  little  heap  of  refuse  there,  a  few 
old  scraps  of  junk  and  some  bolts  and  pins.  I  thrust 
these  aside  with  my  foot  and  pried  about  in  the  cracks 
of  the  planks  with  a  long  cold  chisel.  Of  a  sudden  I 
drew  a  quick  breath;  for  a  piece  of  one  of  the  planks 
yielded  gently.  I  raised  it  and  saw  below  a  dirty  piece 
of  canvas,  which  I  lifted  —  and  there  lay  my  eight 
buckskin  sacks,  nested  between  two  angle-irons,  and 
smiling  up  at  me  like  old  friends ! 

"Where's  that  boy?"  I  heard  Fishley  bellow  from 
[230] 


In  the  Shaft  Alley 

his  station  forward.  "Where's  Morning?  Anybody 
seen  him  ?  " 

"  He  didn't  go  out ! "  sang  a  voice  from  near  the  door. 

I  heard  a  quick  beating  of  heavy  soles  along  the 
planking,  and  the  third  officer  pounced  down  upon  me 
like  a  pelican  after  a  fish,  just  as  I  had  slipped  the  can 
vas  over  the  treasure. 

"Out  o'  that  — out  o'  that!"  he  roared.  "Git 
for'ard  there,  you  young  rascal ! " 

A  stinging  blow  from  the  stick  he  carried  fell  upon 
my  back. 

"  Not  till  I  have  got  my  gold ! "  I  yelled  at  him  angrily, 
though  he  was  within  two  feet  of  me  —  "  the  gold  you 
stole  and  hid  away  under  this  plank." 

The  men  heard  me,  and  they  all  rushed  aft,  in  a 
whooping,  compact  mass  that  bore  down  upon  us  both 
so  heavily  that  had  I  not  ducked  under  the  shaft  they 
would  have  trampled  me  under  their  feet.  It  was 
evident  that  their  curiosity  to  see  and  handle  the  gold, 
if  not  actually  to  make  away  with  it,  had  much  to  do 
with  this  rash  action.  But  many  of  them  must  have 
been  moved  by  a  natural  desire  to  make  Fishley  desist 
from  his  evident  intention  of  securing  the  treasure 
which  they  had  all  worked  so  hard  to  find,  and  which 
[231] 


The  Lure  o9  Gold 

was  about  to  be  taken  away  from  before  their  very  eyes. 

In  their  wild,  distorted  view  of  the  matter,  half 
choked  with  the  bad  air,  and  with  their  brains  a-buz- 
zing,  it  must  have  seemed  to  them  that  they  were  about 
to  be  robbed;  and  so  they  pressed  aft  down  the  alley,  a 
fierce,  hot  mass  of  half-naked,  maniacal  men,  fired  to 
the  last  drop  of  their  blood  with  the  relentless  lust  of 
gold. 

"Keep  him  off  —  keep  him  off!  Don't  let  him  get 
it ! "  cried  several  of  the  mob. 

"Where  is  the  gold?  Let's  see  it  —  let's  see  it!' 
shouted  hysterical  voices. 

"  Stand  back ! "  yelled  Fishley.  "  The'  ain't  no  gold 
here.  He's  fakin'.  Th'  ain't  no  gold ! " 

I  saw  Trust's  evil  face  near  mine.  He  was  pawing 
at  the  canvas  which  I  had  replaced  upon  the  buckskin 
bags.  I  kicked  his  arm  away,  clapped  the  piece  of 
planking  back  in  its  place  and  lay  heavily  upon  it. 
Two  men  of  the  swaying,  struggling  mass  fell  near  me, 
suffocated  by  the  foul  air  and  the  steam  of  the  hot, 
reeking  bodies  that  were  fighting  their  way  aft.  I  saw 
Fishley  on  his  knees  near  me,  and  in  his  hand  was  a 
shining  something  that  must  have  been  a  knife.  He 
bent  over  me  with  uplifted  hand.  I  struck  at  his  face 
[232] 


In  the  Shaft  Alley 

with  my  bare  fist,  and  tried  to  pick  up  the  cold  chisel 
to  strike  him  with  it.  He  came  at  me  again  with  the 
knife  uplifted,  but  he  was  pulled  back  by  the  others. 
He  floundered  violently  and  lost  the  knife.  Then  he 
rose,  leaning  against  the  side  of  the  alley,  and  kicked 
his  way  back  a  few  feet.  At  last  he  and  Trust  sprang 
upon  me  simultaneously  at  either  side,  each  man  trying 
to  roll  me  over  in  a  different  way  and  get  at  the  gold. 

"  Don't  let  'em  git  it ! "  I  heard  a  ringing  nasal  voice 
cry  out.  "  Don't  let  'em  git  it ! " 

The  mob  sprang  at  us  again,  and  pushed  and  hud 
dled  itself  into  a  mass  that  could  hardly  lift  hand  or 
foot.  I  felt  a  terrible  weight  upon  my  breast.  My 
face  was  buried  in  the  greasy,  sweltering,  naked  back 
of  a  prostrate  man.  The  contact  was  insufferably 
loathsome  to  me,  but  I  could  not  escape  it.  My  legs 
were  pinned  down  and  something  was  grinding  on  my 
head.  Then  a  dense  blackness  stole  quietly  over  me, 
great  wheels  hummed  in  my  head,  and  of  what  went 
forward  during  the  next  half -hour  I  was  utterly  ob 
livious. 


[233] 


XXI 


IN  WHICH  MY  BURDEN  IS  RESUMED 


I  AWOKE  on  deck,  where  I  found  myself  lying  on  a 
cot,  with  the  friendly  face  of  Doctor  Quaritch  bending 
over  me,  and  I  could  hear  Yohara  chattering  near  by. 
After  the  vile  closeness  of  the  shaft  alley,  the  fresh, 
sharp  afternoon  breeze  was  a  delight  to  my  thick 
senses.  But  it  was  five  minutes  after  I  had  opened  my 
eyes  and  filled  my  lungs  with  the  life-giving  air  before 
I  could  gasp  out: 

"  The  gold  —  did  they  get  the  gold  ?  " 

"The  gold  is  safe,  John.  It's  all  in  my  black  bag, 
right  under  your  cot." 

I  breathed  a  deep,  delicious  breath  and  lay  back 
exultant. 

"  Feels  good,  doesn't  it  —  that  air,"  remarked  the 
Doctor.  "We  found  you  all  lying  in  a  pretty  heap, 
Nason  and  I,  when  we  got  down  there.  Ten  of  you 
under  chaps  had  fainted  dead  away  and  the  rest  hadn't 
strength  enough  to  walk  out  of  the  tunnel  by  them- 
[234] 


My  Burden  is  Resumed 

selves.  Fishley  and  Trust  weren't  very  pretty  to  look 
at  when  we  pulled  'em  out.  I  never  saw  such  a  purple 
face  as  Fishley's,  but  he  came  to  when  we  brought  him 
out  and  soaked  his  head ;  and  we've  got  him  and  Trust 
and  Somers,  all  in  irons." 

"  So  you  convinced  the  Captain  that  Fishley  was  one 
of  the  conspirators  ?" 

"Yes;  and  it  was  easy,  for  there  was  the  testimony 
of  a  lot  of  the  passengers  that  they  saw  him  trying  to 
stab  you." 

"  Do  you  think  Fishley  closed  the  ventilators  ?  "  I 
asked,  remembering  what  Trust  had  said  to  Somers. 

"What  ventilators?" 

"Those  running  into  the  shaft  tunnel." 

The  Doctor  smiled. 

"  There  are  no  ventilators  to  the  tunnel.  All  the  air 
you  got  was  from  the  engine-room,  through  the  door." 

"  Which  Fishley  kept  closed,"  I  added. 

"Did  he?  The  scoundrel!  Well,  it  turned  out  as 
badly  for  him  as  for  the  rest.  He  didn't  count  on  that 
jamming  up  toward  the  stern-post.  That  was  what 
made  the  trouble  for  him." 

"But  how  about  Bill?" 

"Bill  hasn't  been  seen.  He  probably  heard  about 
[235] 


The  Lure  o  Gold 

the  arrest  of  his  pals  and  Fishley.  But  they'll  get  him, 
if  he  hasn't  jumped  overboard,  which  I  very  much 
doubt.  For  men  just  out  of  wrecks  don't  often  do 
that." 

I  gave  the  Doctor's  hand  a  grateful  squeeze,  and 
asked : 

"How  did  you  manage  to  keep  the  mob  out  of  the 
gold  ?  They  were  all  after  it,  so  it  seemed  to  me." 

"Why,  John,  there  was  no  more  resistance  to  them 
than  in  so  many  dead  men.  They  were  just  lying 
there  like  flies  in  a  corked  bottle.  They  were  stifled. 
It  was  the  worst  conglomerate  case  of  mal-aria  you 
ever  saw.  But  they  will  all  come  around  again  —  the 
rascals." 

"Well,  I  don't  know,"  said  I,  "that  they  were  all 
rascals.  A  few  of  them  seemed  to  be  trying  to  help 
me." 

"  By  piling  on  top  of  you  and  smothering  you,  eh  ? 
How  do  you  feel,  John  ?  " 

"All  right,"  said  I,  sitting  up;  "and  I'm  going  to  get 
my  old  box — it's  in  our  cabin — and  put  the  gold  in  it." 

"  Our  cabin's  gone  —  torn  down,"  said  the  Doctor, 
sadly;  "but  our  things  are  all  in  with  Mr.  Nason's. 
Run  and  get  that  box,  Yohara." 
[236] 


My  Burden  is  Resumed 

I  rose  rather  stiffly  when  Yohara  came  with  the  box. 
I  opened  the  Doctor's  black  bag  and  took  out  the  gold, 
counting  the  buckskin  sacks  as  I  laid  them  affection 
ately  in  the  box.  The  treasure  seemed  to  have  in 
creased  tenfold  in  value,  although  one  of  the  sacks,  from 
which  a  few  hundred  dollars'  worth  of  the  dust  had 
been  extracted,  was  a  trifle  light.  There  was  still 
over  forty  thousand  dollars'  worth  of  gold  left,  so  that 
what  was  missing  seemed  trivial  to  me. 

Now  I  was  a  made  man  again.  Now  I  could  face 
my  father.  I  breathed  deeply  two  or  three  times  and 
the  Doctor  smiled  down  at  me. 

"  I  think,"  said  I,  looking  up  at  him,  one  of  the  heavy 
sacks  in  my  hand,  "that  this  belongs  to  you." 

"  To  me  ?  What  are  you  thinking  of  ?  "  he  grufFed 
forth.  "  Do  you  suppose  that  I  helped  you  as  I  did  for 
the  sake  of  your  gold  ?  No,  sir  —  not  for  a  moment ! 
It  was  because  you  were  the  son  of  William  Morning, 
and  because  you  were  my  friend." 

I  saw  that  he  was  offended  by  my  offer  of  the  gift, 
and  so  I  did  not  press  it  upon  him,  but  made  a  quiet 
resolve  that  when  we  got  ashore  there  should  be  some 
sort  of  substantial  recognition  of  his  services  to  me. 

Bill  was  found  toward  evening  in  one  of  the  empty 
[237] 


The  Lure  o'  Gold 

coal  bunkers,  and  was  hauled  out  and  set  to  work  in 
the  fire-room.  The  Captain  promised  that  all  four  of 
the  men  under  guard  should  be  turned  over  to  the 
authorities  as  soon  as  we  should  reach  port. 

My  gold  was  now  safe  in  the  purser's  hands,  and 
there  was  nothing  more  to  fear  from  anybody's  evil 
designs  upon  it. 

The  next  morning  we  were  all  hard  at  work,  tearing 
out  what  remained  of  the  woodwork.  We  even  chopped 
up  the  fore-hatch  and  shot  it  down  the  chute.  The 
hatch  was  replaced  by  a  piece  of  sail-cloth.  We  did 
not  strike  an  axe  in  the  large  passenger  saloon  or  the 
dining-room  below,  as  they  were  built  of  costly  wood; 
but  when  one  of  the  young  women  aboard  insisted  upon 
drumming  upon  the  piano,  much  to  the  Doctor's  annoy 
ance,  he  went  in  and  gravely  requested  her  to  leave  the 
instrument,  as  it  was  about  to  be  broken  up  for  fuel. 

"  Going  to  burn  the  piano  ?  "  she  exclaimed.  "  Well, 
I  s'pose  they  are  pretty  short  of  wood  by  this  time." 
And  she  returned  to  her  cabin,  much  to  the  relief  of 
the  Doctor. 

"Well,"  he  said  to  me  as  I  cut  away  at  an  unwieldly 
piece  of  studding,  "this  should  be  our  last  day.  We 
are  only  two  hundred  and  fifty  miles  out,  and  ought 
[238] 


My  Burden  is  Resumed 

to  reach  port  sometime  to-night.  The  passengers  are 
talking  about  a  steamer  to  the  eastward,  but  I  haven't 
picked  her  up  yet." 

I  looked  sharply  about  the  eastern  horizon. 

"There  she  is!"  I  cried.  "Maybe  this  one  will  be 
more  obliging  than  the  other  was." 

"Oh,  yes;  I  see  her.  Well,  she  isn't  throwing  out 
much  smoke." 

We  went  up  to  where  Captain  Head  stood  with  his 
glass  pointed  toward  the  steamer. 

"She's  a  little  queer,"  said  the  Captain.  "I  can't 
make  her  out  just  yet.  I  don't  believe  she's  making 
much  way.  She  can't  be  the  San  Bernardino.  She 
would  be  blowing  out  smoke  for  further  orders.  But 
by  thunder,  that's  what  she  is ! " 

"  The  San  Bernardino  ?  Why,  she  ought  to  be  dump 
ing  her  coal  over  at  the  S.  P.  wharf  by  this  time,"  was 
the  Doctor's  oracular  remark. 

"  It's  the  San  Bernardino  all  right,"  said  the  Captain. 
"  I  wonder  why  he's  running  her  so  slow.  Well,  we'll 
know  pretty  soon." 

In  less  than  an  hour  we  were  near  enough  for  close 
observation.  The  steamer  was  drifting  about  idly,  every 
stitch  of  her  smoke-begrimed  canvas  to  the  breeze. 


The  Lure  o'  Gold 

"  Oh,  she's  making  no  way  at  all ! "  said  the  Captain, 
and  his  voice  had  an  exultant  note  in  it.  "I'll  tell 
you  what,  Doctor,  she's  stalled  —  broke  her  crank 
shaft,  I'll  bet  my  buttons." 

He  called  up  the  chief  engineer,  and  I  heard  him 
say  to  that  officer: 

"  Jim,  we've  simply  got  to  make  better  speed.  To 
morrow  will  be  the  first,  and  we  must  be  in  by  noon. 
Besides,  I'd  like  to  come  a-flyin'  up  by  the  bows  of  that 
chap  over  there.  Can't  we  do  a  little  better  ?  " 

"  Yes,  sir;  I've  got  a  few  knots  up  my  sleeve  yet." 

"  How  can  you  make  it  ?  There's  nothing  but  this 
light  stuff  out  of  the  house." 

"  You  won't  mind,  will  you,  how  I  do  it  ?  " 

"  No;  not  unless  it's  dangerous." 

"  Well,  it  is  a  little  dangerous.  You  see,  we've  got  four 
hundred  gallons  of  coal  oil  on  board  in  those  tanks." 

"  Oh,  you  can't  feed  that  illuminating  stuff.  It  will 
go  pop  if  you  throw  it  in." 

"  I  couldn't  feed  it  in  solid,  I  know.  But  I'll  tell  you 
what  I  can  do :  I  can  soak  a  lot  of  mattresses  in  it  — 
roll  'em  up  and  poke  'em  in.  That  would  work  all 
right.  Dangerous,  of  course;  but  we  don't  want  to  be 
out  here  all  winter,  do  we  ?  " 

[240] 


My  Burden  is  Resumed 

"  Well,  try  it,"  said  the  Captain,  with  a  smile.  "  Any 
thing  to  get  around  that  fellow." 

"All  right.     In  go  the  mattresses." 

Within  ten  minutes  we  could  smell  the  petroleum 
smoke  from  the  stack,  and  in  half  an  hour  we  were 
flying  toward  the  San  Bernardino  at  a  good  fifteen 
knots. 

"  Good  morning,  Captain ! "  said  the  M odesto's  mas 
ter,  with  cool  politeness,  when  we  had  neared  the  San 
Bernardino,  and  slowed  down  on  her  starboard  side. 
"I  see  you  are  in  no  hurry  about  making  port." 

"  Yes,  I  am ;  but  my  propeller's  hung  up  for  the  pres 
ent." 

"I  don't  suppose  you  want  a  tow!"  called  Captain 
Head,  in  cutting  tones. 

"  Well,  yes;  I'm  in  a  hurry  to  get  in.  But  you  haven't 
any  fuel." 

"  Oh,  yes  —  enough  to  run  in  with." 

"  What  are  you  asking  ?  " 

"  Well,  you  are  low  in  the  water,  and  are  a  pretty 
soggy  craft  to  handle,  but  I  can  tow  you  in  all  right." 

"  At  what  figure  —  five  thousand  ?  " 

"Oh,  no!     Salvage!" 

The  Captain  of  the  San  Bernardino  whistled. 
[241] 


The  Lure  o*  Gold 

"Huh,  but  you're  burning  your  insides  out!"  he 
yelled.  "  You're  showing  half  your  bottom." 

"  What  of  it  ?  My  engines  and  machinery  are  in 
good  order.  I've  got  something  to  turn  a  screw  with. 
But  yours  are  useless.  You're  adrift,  and  may  be  car 
ried  anywhere  by  the  current  and  the  tides  —  perhaps 
on  to  the  coast." 

"Well,"  said  the  dejected  Captain,  still  trying  to 
make  the  best  of  the  situation,  "it  would  be  only  a 
matter  of  a  few  days  with  me,  for  I've  got  four  good 
machinists  at  work  fixing  up  the  shaft.  But  time  is 
valuable.  If  you'll  tow  me  in,  I'll  give  you  all  the  coal 
you  want  and  eight  thousand  dollars  to  make  repairs 
with." 

"  Nothing  but  salvage,  and  I  won't  do  it  for  that  un 
less  you  let  me  have  the  coal  and  lend  me  your  firemen. 
You  wanted  to  take  advantage  of  me,  and  now  perhaps 
you'll  learn  something." 

"All  right,"  said  the  crestfallen  Captain  of  the  San 
Bernardino.  "  Pass  us  your  line." 

The  sea  was  smooth,  and,  as  the  crew  worked  rapidly, 

in  a  short  time  we  had  plenty  of  coal  aboard  and  the 

aspect  of  affairs  was  wholly  changed.     All  the  firemen 

were  soon  cooling  off  on  deck.     Half  of  the  crew  had 

[242] 


My  Burden  is  Resumed 

quit  work,  and  the  passengers  were  singing  and  smok 
ing  and  making  merry  —  all  save  Trust  and  Somers, 
who,  with  Fishley  and  Bill,  were  in  irons  down  in  the 
steerage. 

"  This  isn't  so  bad  for  the  ship  after  all,"  was  Doctor 
Quaritch's  remark  to  me,  as  he  glanced  at  the  low- 
lying  San  Bernardino,  trailing  along  astern.  "We 
didn't  burn  a  third  of  our  deckhouse  woodwork,  and 
those  planks  from  the  holds  weren't  worth  much. 
Twenty  thousand  dollars  will  pay  for  the  repairs,  so 
the  Captain  says,  and  the  salvage  will  be  twice  that 
amount.  We  have  really  made  money  by  gutting  the 
ship." 

We  steamed  along,  the  San  Bernardino  in  tow,  picked 
up  Point  Lobos  light  by  midnight,  and  next  morning, 
after  some  little  delay,  because  of  a  rigid  quarantine 
inspection,  lay  alongside  the  Howard-street  wharf* 
where  I  could  hear  the  old  familiar  hum  of  the  trolley- 
cars,  the  sound  of  which  made  my  heart  leap  with  joy. 
Never  did  the  grimy  streets  of  the  water-front  wear 
such  a  friendly  look  as  in  the  hazy  sunlight  of  that  brisk 
October  morning. 

I  had  come  back  to  the  city  of  my  birth,  after  my 
long  Arctic  pilgrimage,  and  after  all  my  moving  adven- 
[243] 


The  Lure  o9  Gold 

tures  by  land  and  sea,  and  I  had  fetched  home  with  me 
the  golden  treasure  of  my  dreams,  safe  from  all  the 
covetous  hands  that  had  reached  forth  to  clutch  it  and 
wrest  it  from  me.  To  say  that  I  was  glad  but  poorly 
expresses  the  delight  I  felt  when  the  plank  was  lowered 
and  we  all  crowded  to  the  side.  Doctor  Quaritch  had 
undertaken  the  task  of  informing  the  Federal  author 
ities  about  the  prisoners,  and  I  ran  down  the  gang-plank, 
jumped  into  a  cab,  and  in  a  few  minutes  was  flying  up 
Market  street. 

I  burst  in  upon  my  good  people,  who  were  soon  all 
in  a  high  state  of  excitement,  my  mother  weeping  and 
laughing  all  at  once,  my  sisters  and  brothers  making 
wild  demonstrations  of  welcome,  and  my  father's  wan 
face  —  he  had  just  come  safely  out  of  his  long  siege  of 
illness  —  wreathed  in  glad  smiles. 

"  About  the  gold,"  asked  my  father,  after  I  had  been 
nearly  smothered  by  my  affectionate  sisters,  "  is  it  safe  ?  " 

"It  will  be  in  the  Mint  to-morrow."  I  showed  him 
the  purser's  receipt. 

"Did  you  have  any  trouble  bringing  it  down?" 
asked  he,  considerately. 

"Did  I  have  any  trouble?"  I  repeated.  "Well, 
yes  — a  little!" 

[244] 


M y  Burden  is  Resumed 

And  then  I  gave  him  an  outline  of  the  adventures 
that  I  have  detailed  more  fully  to  the  readers  of  the  fore 
going  chapters. 

The  next  day,  after  the  gold  had  been  deposited  in 
the  Mint,  I  saw  Trust  and  the  others  in  prison,  which  I 
visited  in  company  with  Doctor  Quaritch.  Somers  and 
Bill  were  lying  on  their  cots  behind  the  bars,  apparently 
asleep.  Fishley  was  reading  a  newspaper,  and  per 
sistently  kept  his  face  away  from  us.  Trust  was  smok 
ing  a  cigarette  and  writing  in  a  corner  of  his  cell. 

"  Wait  a  minute,"  said  he,  as  we  turned  to  go.  "  I'm 
just  putting  the  finishing  touches  to  this." 

A  moment  later  he  rose,  gathered  up  a  half-dozen 
sheets  of  writing  paper  that  lay  before  him,  and  passed 
them  through  the  bars  to  me,  saying : 

"  Here's  something  I  wrote  for  you." 

"  For  me  ?  "  I  asked,  wondering. 

"  Yes,  for  you  —  to  read." 

I  surmised  that  the  scrawl  he  had  penciled  on  the 
paper  was  some  sort  of  plea  for  clemency  on  the  part 
of  the  complaining  witness  against  him.  But  it  con 
sisted  of  eleven  stanzas  of  what  purported  to  be  poetry, 
at  the  top  of  which  I  read  the  title :  "  The  Gold-Seeker's 
Lament." 

[245] 


The  Lure  o9  Gold 

I  handed  the  manuscript  to  the  Doctor,  who  glanced 
at  it  askance  for  a  moment,  then  took  it  and  looked  it 
over  with  a  smile. 

"I  know  one  gold-seeker  who  will  lament  long 
enough,"  he  said,  in  an  undertone  to  me,  as  he  glanced 
toward  Trust  significantly.  "He'll  have  plenty  of 
time  where  he's  going  for  writing  poetry.  Let  us  hope 
that  while  he's  there  he'll  improve  his  style  as  well  as 
his  morals." 

The  Doctor  and  I  left  the  prison  and  took  a  street 
car  to  go  down  to  the  wharf  and  visit  the  old  Modesto, 
now  in  the  hands  of  the  repair  gang,  and  pay  our  re 
spects  to  Captain  Head.  As  we  passed  along  East 
street,  by  the  wharves,  and  saw  the  great  hulks  lying 
in  the  bright  sunshine  that  glinted  over  a  summer  sea, 
I  bethought  myself  of  the  cold,  forbidding  Bering  coast, 
and  shivered  a  little  in  spite  of  the  warmth  of  the  day. 

As  we  neared  the  dock,  we  heard  one  of  the  passen 
gers  in  the  car,  who  was  going  aboard  an  Australian 
steamer,  remark  in  a  sophisticated  tone  to  another,  in 
reply  to  a  question  as  to  the  probable  dangers  and  ad 
ventures  of  his  proposed  voyage: 

"Oh,  no!  Life  on  board  ship  is  tame  enough  in 
these  commercial  days.  All  the  romance  is  gone  out 
[246] 


My  Burden  is  Resumed 

of  it.  Now  you  take  a  big  ocean  steamer,  either  on 
the  Atlantic  or  the  Pacific,  or  anywhere  you  want  to 
go  —  life  aboard  of  her  is  no  more  adventurous  or  in 
teresting  than  it  is  on  a  railroad  train.  Everything 
goes  along  about  as  smoothly  as  on  the  rail,  and  the 
experiences  of  a  steamer  captain  are  not  much  different 
from  those  of  a  conductor.  Romance?  adventure? 
there  isn't  a  bit  of  it  left  on  the  sea." 

I  looked  at  the  Doctor,  and  the  Doctor  looked  at  me. 


[247] 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 
Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 


,  T  IUT  Afl 

0  vnVolMnH 

OCT26   361 

AUG  1  ^    Z003 

M5  Hard,  Be 

iley 

1 

The  lure 

o*  gold. 

9129 1 3 


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